3- 

207 

L2 

A2 


B    3    273    3MD 


ORATION  ON  THE  LIFE  AND  CHARACTER 
OF  GILBERT  MOTIER  DE  LAFAYETTE 
J.Q.  Adams 


r 


ORATION 


THE    LIFE    AND    CHARACTER 


GILBERT  MOTIER  BE  LAFAYETTE, 


DELIVJ 


AT  THE  KEQUEST  OF  BOTH  HOUSES    OF  THE  CONGRESS 
OF  THE  UNITED   ST-'v 


BEFORE 


LV  THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES  AT  WASHINGTON, 


ON  THE  2i  = 


BY    JOHN    QUINCY    ADAMS, 

A  M*:;.:  it  ;••.;:  or  THE   HOUSE. 


PRINT  KI)    I)  V    1)  UFF    GF 
1855. 


ORATION. 


Fellow-citizens  of  the   Senate  and 

House  of  Representatives  of  the   United   States  : 

IF  the  authority  by  which  I  am  now  called  to  address  you 
is  one  of  the  highest  honors1  that  could  be  conferred  upon  a 
citizen  of  this  Union  by  his  countrymen,  I  cannot  dissemble  to 
myself  that  it  embraces  at  the  same  time  one  of  the  most  ar- 
duous duties  that  could  be  imposed.  Grateful  to  you  for  the 
honor  conferred  upon  me  by  your  invitation,  a  sentiment  of  irre- 
pressible and  fearful  diffidence  absorbs  every  faculty  of  my  soul 
in  contemplating  the  magnitude,  the  difficulties,  and  the  delicacy 
of  the  task  which  it  has  been  your  pleasure  to  assign  to  me. 

I  am  to  speak  to  the  North  American  States  and  People, 
assembled  here  in  the  persons  of  their  honored  and  confidential 
Lawgivers  and  Representatives.  I  am  to  speak  to  them,  by 
their  own  appointment,  upon  the  Life  and  Character  of  a  man, 
whose  life  was,  for  nearly  threescore  years,  the  history  of  the 
civilized  world — of  a  man,  of  whose  character,  to  say  that  it  is 
indissolubly  identified  with  the  Revolution  of  our  Independence 


is  little  more  than  to  mark  the  features  of  his  childhood — of  a 
man,  the  personified  image  of  self-circumscribed  liberty.  Nor 
can  it  escape  the  most  superficial  observation,  that,  in  speaking 
to  the  fathers  of  the  land  upon  the  Life  and  Character  of 
LAFAYETTE,  I  cannot  forbear  to  touch  upon  topics  which  are 
yet  deeply  convulsing  the  world,  both  of  opinion  and  of  action. 
I  am  to  walk  between  burning  ploughshares — to  tread  upon  fires 
which  have  not  yet  even  collected  cinders  to  cover  them. 

If,  in  addressing  their  countrymen  upon  their  most  important 
interests,  the  Orators  of  Antiquity  were  accustomed  to  begin  by 
supplication  to  their  gods  that  nothing  unsuitable  to  be  said  or 
unworthy  to  be  heard  might  escape  from  their  lips,  how  much 
more  forcible  is  my  obligation  to  invoke  the  favor  of  Him  "  who 
touched  Isaiah's  hallowed  lips  with  fire,"  not  only  to  extinguish 
in  the  mind  every  conception  unadapted  to  the  grandeur  and 
sublimity  of  the  theme,  but  to  draw  from  the  bosom  of  the  deep- 
est conviction  thoughts  congenial  to  the  merits  which  it  is  the 
duty  of  the  Discourse  to  unfold,  and  words  not  unworthy  of  the 
dignity  of  the  Auditory  before  whom  I  appear. 

In  order  to  form  a  just  estimate  of  the  Life  and  Character 
of  Lafayette,  it  may  be  necessary  to  advert,  not  only  to  the 
circumstances  connected  with  his  birth,  education,  and  lineage, 
but  to  the  political  condition  of  his  country  and  of  Great 
Britain,  her  national  rival  and  adversary,  at  the  time  of  his 
birth,  and  during  his  years  of  childhood. 

On  the  sixth  day  of  September,  one  thousand  seven  hundred 


and  fifty-seven,  the  hereditary  Monarch  of  the  British  Islands 
was  a  native  of  Germany.  A  rude,  illiterate  old  soldier  of 
the  wars  for  the  Spanish  succession  ;  little  versed  even  in  the 
language  of  the  Nations  over  which  he  ruled  ;  educated  to-  the 
maxims  and  principles  of  the  Feudal  Law  ;  of  openly  licen- 
tious life,  and  of  moral  character  far  from  creditable : — he  styled 
himself,  by  the  grace  of  God,  of  Great  Britain,  France,  and 
Ireland,  King  ;  but  there  was  another  and  real  King  of  France, 
no  better,  perhaps  worse,  than  himself,  and  with  whom  he  was 
then  at  war.  This  was  Louis,  the  fifteenth  of  the  name,  great 
grandson  of  his  immediate  predecessor,  Louis  the  Fourteenth, 
sometimes  denominated  the  Great.  These  two  Kings  held  their 
thrones  by  the  law  of  hereditary  succession,  variously  modified, 
in  France  by  the  Roman  Catholic,  and  in  Britain  by  Protestant 
Reformed  Christianity. 

They  were  at  war — chiefly  for  conflicting  claims  to  the  pos- 
session of  the  Western  Wilderness  of  North  America — a  prize, 
the  capabilities  of  which  are  now  unfolding  themselves  with  a 
grandeur  and  magnificence  unexampled  in  the  history  of  the 
world  ;  but  of  which,  if  the  nominal  possession  had  remained 
in  either  of  the  two  Princes,  who  were  staking  their  Kingdoms 
upon  the  issue  of  the  strife,  the  buffalo  and  the  beaver,  with 
their  hunter,  the  Indian  savage,  would,  at  this  day,  have  -  been, 
as  tliey  then  were  the  only  inhabitants. 

In  this  war,  GEORGE  WASHINGTON,  then  at  the  age 
'of  twenty-four,  was  on  the  side  of  the  British  German  King,  a 
youthful,  but  heroic  combatant ;  and,  in  the  same  war,  the 


father   of   Lafayette   was  on   the  opposite  side,  exposing  his  life 
in  the  heart  of  Germany,  for  the  cause  of  the  King  of  France. 

On  that  day,  the  sixth  of  September,  one  thousand  seven 
hundred  and  fifty-seven,  was  born  GILBERT  MOTIER  DE 
LAFAYETTE,  at  the  Castle  of  Chavaniac,  in  Auvergne,  and  a 
few  months  after  his  birth  his  father  fell  in  battle  at  Minden. 

Let  us  here  observe  the  influence  of  political  institutions 
over  the  destinies  and  the  characters  of  men.  George  the 
Second  was  a  German  Prince  ;  he  had  been  made  King  of  the 
British  Islands  by  the  accident  of  his  birth  :  that  is  to  say, 
because  his  great  grandmother  had  been  the  daughter  of  James 
the  First ;  that  great  grandmother  had  been  married  to  the 
Kino;  of  Bohemia,  and  her  youngest  daughter  had  been  married 
to  the  Elector  of  Hanover.  George  the  Second's  father  was 
her  son,  and  when  James  the  Second  had  been  expelled  from 
his  throne  and  his  country  by  the  indignation  of  his  People, 
who  revolted  against  his  tyranny,  and  when  his  two  daughters 
who  succeeded  him  had  died  without  issue,  George  the  First, 
the  son  of  the  Electress  of  Hanover,  became  King  of  Great 
Britain  by  the  settlement  of  an  Act  of  Parliament,  blending 
together  the  principle  of  hereditary  succession  with  that  of 
Reformed  Protestant  Christianity  and  the  rights  of  the  Church 
of  England. 

The  throne  of  France  was  occupied  by  virtue  of  the  same 
principle  of  hereditary  succession,  differently  modified,  and 
blended  with  the  Christianity  of  the  Church  of  Rome.  From 


this  line  of  succession  all  females  were  inflexibly  excluded. 
Louis  the  Fifteenth,  at  the  age  of  six  years,  had  become  the 
absolute  Sovereign  of  France,  because  he  was  the  great  grand- 
son of  his  immediate  predecessor.  He  was  of  the  third  gene- 
ration in  descent  from  the  preceding  King,  and  by  the  law  of 
primogeniture  engrafted  upon  that  of  lineal  succession,  did,  by 
the  death  of  his  ancestor,  forthwith  succeed,  though  in  child- 
hood, to  an  absolute  throne,  in  preference  to  numerous  descend- 
ants from  that  same  ancestor,  then  in  the  .full  vigor  of  manhood. 

The  first  reflection  that  must  occur  to  a  rational  being,  in 
contemplating  these  two  results  of  the  principle  of  hereditary 
succession,  as  resorted  to  for  designating  the  rulers  of  Nations, 
is,  that  two  persons  more  unfit  to  occupy  the  thrones  of  Britain 
and  of  France,  at  the  time  of  their  respective  accessions,  could 
scarcely  have  been  found  upon  the  face  of  the  Globe — George  the 
Second,  a  foreigner,  the  son  and  grandson  of  foreigners,  born 
beyond  the  seas,  educated  in  uncongenial  manners,  ignorant  of 
the  Constitution,  of  the  Laws,  even  of  the  Language  of  the 
People  over  whom  he  was  to  rule;  and  Louis  the  Fifteenth,  an 
infant,  incapable  of  discerning  his  right  hand  from  his  left.  Yet, 
strange  as  it  may  sound  to  the  ear  of  unsophisticated  reason, 
the  British  Nation  were  wedded  to  the  belief  that  this  act  of  set- 
tlement, fixing  their  Crown  upon  the  heads  of  this  succession  of 
total  strangers,  was  the  brightest  and  most  glorious  exemplifi- 
cation of  their  national  freedom ;  and  not  less  strange,  if  aught  in 
the  imperfection  of  human  reason  could  seem  strange,  was  that 
deep  conviction  of  the  French  People,  at  the  same  period,  that 
their  chief  glory  and  happiness  consisted  in  the  vehemence  of 


8 

their  affectipn   for  their  King,  because   he  was  descended  in  an 
unbroken  male  line  of  genealogy  from  Saint  Louis. 

One  of  the  fruits  of  this  line  of  hereditary  succession,  modi- 
fied by  sectarian  principles  of  religion,  was  to  make  peace  and 
war,  the  happiness  or  misery  of  the  People  of  the  British  Empire, 
dependent  upon  the  fortunes  of  the  Electorate  of  Hanover — the 
personal  domain  of  their  imported  King.  This  was  a  result  ca- 
lamitous alike  to  the  People  of  Hanover,  of  Britain,  and  of 
France;  for  it  was  one  of  the  two  causes  of  that  dreadful  war 
then  waging  between  them;  and  as  the  cause,  so  was  this  a 
principal  theatre  of  that  disastrous  war.  It  was  at  Minden,  in 
the  heart  of  the  Electorate  of  Hanoyer,  that  the  father  of  Lafay- 
ette fell,  and  left  him  an  orphan,  a  victim  to  that  war  and  to 
the  principle  of  hereditary  succession  from  which  it  emanated. 

*•>*  ffrv^tf— 'v;»!  *  .stt\ '; •>•:•;  .^  s'v  iV--: 

Thus,  then,  it  was  on  the  6th  of  September,  1757,  the  day 

when  Lafayette  was  born.  The  Kings  of  France  and  Britain 
were  seated  upon  their  thrones  by  virtue  of  the  principle  of 
hereditary  succession,  variously  modified  and  blended  with  different 
forms  of  religious  faith,  and  they  were  waging  war  against  each 
other,  and  exhausting  the  blood  and  treasure  of  their  People  for 
causes  in  which  neither  of  the  Nations  had  any  beneficial  or 
lawful  interest. 

In  this  war  the  father  of  Lafayette  fell  in  the  cause  of  his 
King,  but  not  of  his  country.  He  was  an  officer  of  an  invading 
army,  the  instrument  of  his  Sovereign's  wanton  ambition  and 

lust   of   conquest.     The  People  of  the  Electorate  of   Hanover 

'M 


had  clone  no  wrong  to  him  or  to  his  country.  When  his  son 
came  to  an  age  capable  of  understanding  the  irreparable  loss 
that  he  had  suffered,  and  to  reflect  upon  the  causes  of  his 
father's  fate,  there  was  no  drop  of  consolation  mingled  in  the 
cup  from  the  consideration  that  he  had  died  for  his  country. 
And  when  the  youthful  mind  was  awakened  to  meditation  upon 
the  rights  of  Mankind,  the  principles  of  Freedom,  and  theories 
of  Government,  it  cannot  be  difficult  to  perceive,  in  the  illus- 
trations of  his  own  family  records,  the  source  of  that  aversion 
to  hereditary  rule,  perhaps  the  most  distinguishing  feature  of 
his  political  opinions,  and  to  which  he  adhered  through  all  the 
vicissitudes  of  his  life. 

In  the  same  war,  and  at  the  same  time,  George  Washington 
was  armed,  a  loyal  subject,  in  support  of  his  King;  but  to  him 
that  was  also  the  cause  of  His  country.  His  commission  was 
not  in  the  army  of  George  the  Second,  but  issued  under  the 
authority  of  the  Colony  of  Virginia,  the  province  in  which  he 
received  his  birth.  On  the  borders  of  that  province,  the  war  in 
its  most  horrid  forms  was  waged— not  a  war  of  mercy,  and  of 
courtesy,  like  that  of  the  civilized  embattled  Legions  of  Europe; 
but  war  to  the  knife — the  war  of  Indian  savages,  terrible  to 
man,  but  more  terrible  to  the  tender  sex,  and  most  terrible  to 
helpless  infancy.  In  defence  of  his  country  against  the  ravages 
of  such  a  war,  Washington  in  the  dawn  of  manhood  had  drawn 
his  sword,  as  if  Providence,  with  deliberate  purpose,  had  sancti- 
fied for  him  the  practice  of  war,  all-detestable  and  unhallowed 
as  it  is,  that  he  might  in  a  cause  virtuous  and  exalted  by  its 

motive  and  its  end,  be  trained  and  fitted  in    a   congenial    school 
2  , 


10 


^o  march  in  aftertimes  the  leader   of  heroes   in   the   war  of    his 
country's  Independence. 

At  the  time  of  the  birth  of  Lafayette,  this  war  which  was 
to  make  him  a  fatherless  child,  and  in  which  Washington  was 
laying  broad  and  deep  in  the  defence  and  protection  of  his 
native  Irind  the  foundations  of  his  unrivalled  renown,  was  but  in 
its  early  stage.  It  was  to  continue  five  years  longer,  and  was 
to  close  with  the  total  extinguishment  of  the  colonial  dominion 
of  France  on  the  Continent  of  North  America.  The  deep 
humiliation  of  France,  and  the  triumphant  ascendancy  on  this 
Continent  of  her  rival,  were  the  first  results  of  this  great 
national  conflict.  The  complete  expulsion  of  France  from 
North  America  seemed,  to  the  superficial  vision  of  men,  to  fix 
the  British  power  over  these  extensive  regions  on  foundations 
immovable  as  the  everlasting 


Let  us  -pass  in  imagination  a  period  of  only  twenty  years, 
and  alight  upon  the  borders  of  the  river  Brandywine.  Wash- 
ington is  Commander-in-chief  of  the  armies  of  the  United 
States  of  America — war  is  again  raging  in  the  heart  of  his 
native  land— -hostile  armies,  of  one  and  the  same  name,  blood,  anil 
language,  are  'arrayed  for  battle  on  the  banks  of  the  stream ; 
and  Philadelphia,  where  the  United  States  are  in  Congress 
assembled,  and  whence  their  Decree  of  Independence  has  gone 
forth,  is  the  destined  prize  to  the  conflict  of  the  day.  Who 
i-s  that  tall  slender  youth,  of  foreign  air  and  aspect,  scarcely 
emerged  from  the  years  of  boyhood  and  fresh  from  the  walls 
of  a  college,  fighting,  a  volunteer,  at  the  side  of  Washington, 


11 


bleeding,  unconsciously  to  himself,  and  rallying  his  men  to 
secure  the  retreat  of  the  scattered  American  ranks?  It  is 
GILBERT  MOTIER  DE  LAFAYETTE  ! — the  son  of  the  victim  of 
Minden!  and  he  is  bleeding  in  the  cause  of  North  American 
Independence  and  of  Freedom. 

We  pause  one  moment  to  inquire  what  was  this  cause 
of  North  American  Independence,  and  what  were  the  motives 
and  inducements  to  the  youthful  stranger  to  devote  himself, 
his  life,  and  fortune,  to  it. 

The  People  of  the  British  Colonies  in  North  America,  after  a 
controversy  of  ten  years'  duration  with  their  Sovereign  beyond  the 
seas,  upon  an  attempt  by  him  and  his  Parliament  to  tax  them 
without  their  consent,  had  been  constrained  by  necessity  to 
declare  themselves  independents- to  dissolve  the  tie  of  their  alle- 
giance to  him — to  renounce  their  right  to  his  protection,  and  to 
assume  their  station  among  the  independent  civilized  Nations  of 
the  Earth.  This  had  been  done  with  a  deliberation  and  solemnity 
unexampled  in  the  history  of  the  world — done  in  the  midst  of  a 
civil  war,  differing  in  character  from  any  of  those  which  for 
centuries  before  had  desolated  Europe.  The  war  had  arisen  upon 
a  question  between  the  rights  of  the  People  and  the  powers  of 
their  Government.  The  discussions  in  the  progress  of  the  con- 
troversy had  opened  to  the  contemplations  of  men  the  first 
foundations  of  civil  society  and  of  government.  The  war  of  In- 
dependence began  by  litigation  upon  a  petty  stamp  on  paper,  and 
a  tax  of  three  pence  a  pound  upon  tea;  but  these  broke  up  the 
fountains  of  the  great  deep,  and  the  deluge  ensued.  Had  the 


British  Parliament  the  right  to  tax  the  People  of  the  Colonies  in 
another  hemisphere,  not  represented  in  the  Imperial  Legislature  ? 
They  affirmed  they  had :  the  People  of  the  Colonies  insisted  they 
had  not.  There  were  ten  years  of  pleading  before  they  came  to 
an  issue ;  and  all  the  legitimate  sources  of  power  and  all  the 
primitive  elements  of  freedom,  were  scrutinized,  debated,  analyzed, 
and  elucidated,  before  the  lighting  of  the  torch  of  Ate,  and  her 
cry  of  havoc  upon  letting  slip  the  dogs  of  war. 

When  the  day  of  conflict  came,  the  issue  of  the  contest  was 
necessarily  changed.  The  People  of  the  Colonies  had  maintained 
the  contest  on  the  principle  of  resisting  the  invasion  of  chartered 
rights — first  by  argument  and  remonstrance,  and  finally  by  appeal 
to  the  sword.  But  with  the  war  came  the  necessary  exercise  of 
sovereign  powers.  The  Declaration  of  Independence  justified  itself 
as  the  only  possible  remedy  for  insthTerable  wrongs.  It  seated  itself 
upon  the  first  foundations  of  the  law  of  nature,  and  the  incon- 
testable doctrine  of  human  rights.  There  was  no  longer  any 
question  of  the  constitutional  powers  of  the  British  Parliament,  or 
of  violated  colonial  charters.  Thenceforward  the  American  Nation 
supported  its  existence  by  war ;  and  the  British  Nation  by  war 
was  contending  for  conquest.  As  between  the  two  parties  the 
single  question  at  issue  was  Independence — but  in  the  confederate 
existence  of  the  North  American  Union,  LIBERTY — not  only  their 
own  liberty,  but  the  vital  principle  of  liberty  to  the  whole  race 
of  civilized  man  was  involved. 

It  was  at  this  stage  of  the  conflict,  and  immediately  after  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,   that  it  drew   the    attention,   and 


13 


called    into  action   the    moral    sensibilities   and   the    intellectual 
faculties  of  Lafayette,  then  in  the  nineteenth  year  of  his  age. 

The  war  was  revolutionary.  It  began  by  the  dissolution  of  the 
British  Government  in  the  Colonies,  the  People  of  which  were 
by  that  operation  left  without  any  Government  whatever.  They 
were  then  at  one  and  the  same  time  maintaining  their  independ- 
ent national  existence  by  war,  and  forming  new  social  compacts 
for  their  own  government  thenceforward.  The  construction  of 
civil  society ;  the  extent  and  the  limitations  of  organized  power ; 
the  establishment  of  a  system  of  government  combining  the  greatest 
enlargement  of  individual  liberty  with  the  most  perfect  preserv- 
ation of  public  order,  were  the  continual  occupations  of  every 
mind.  The  consequences  of  this  state  of  things  to  the  history  of 
mankind,  and  especially  to  Europe,  were  foreseen  by  none 
Europe  saw  nothing  but  the  war — a  People  struggling  for  liberty 
and  against  oppression ;  and  the  People  in  every  part  of  Europe 
sympathized  with  the  People  of  the  American  Colonies. 
. 

With  their  governments  it  was  not  so.  The  people  of  the  Ame- 
rican Colonies  were  insurgents — all  Governments  abhor  insurrec 
tion — they  were  revolted  colonists.  The  great  maritime  Powers 
of  Europe  had  Colonies  of  their  own,  to  which  the  example  ot 
resistance  against  oppression  might  be  contagious.  The  American 
Colonies  were  stigmatized  in  all  the  official  acts  of  the  British 
Government  as  rebels;  and  rebellion  to  the  governing  part  of 
mankind  is  as  the  sin  of  witchcraft.  The  Governments  of  Eu- 
rope therefore,  were,  at  heart,  on  the  side  of  the  British  Govern- 


14 

ment  in  this  war,  and  the  People  of  Europe  were  on  the  side  of 
the  American  People. 

Lafayette,  by  his  position  and  condition  in  life,  was  one  of 
those  who,  governed  by  the  ordinary  impulses  which  influence  and 
control  the  conduct  of  men,  would  have  sided  in  sentiment  with 
the  British  or  Royal  cause. 

Lafayette  was  born  a  subject  of  the  most  absolute  and  most 
splendid  Monarchy  of  Europe,  and  in  the  highest  rank  of  tier 
proud  and  chivalrous  Nobility.  He  had  been  educated  at  a  col- 
lege of  the  University  of  Paris,  founded  by  the  royal  munificence 
of  Louis  the  Fourteenth,  or  of  his  Minister  Cardinal  Richelieu. 
Left  an  orphan  in  early  childhood,  with  the  inheritance  of  a 
princely  fortune,  he  had  been  married  at  sixteen  years  of  age 
to  a  daughter  of  the  house  of  Noailles,  the  most  distinguished 
family  of  the  Kingdom — scarcely  deemed  in  public  consideration 
inferior  to  that  which  wore  the  Crown.  He  came  into  active  life, 
at  the  change  from  boy  to  man,  a  husband  and  a  father,  in  the  full 
•enjoyment  of  every  thing  that  avarice  could  covet,  with  a  certain 
prospect  before  him  of  all  that  ambition  could  crave.  Happy  in 
his  domestic  affections,  incapable  from  the  benignity  of  his  nature 
of  envy,  hatred,  or  revenge,  a  life  of  "  ignoble  ease  and  indolent 
repose"  seemed  to  be  that  which  nature  and  fortune  had  combined 
to  prepare  before  him.  To  men  of  ordinary  mould  this  condition 
would  have  led  to  a  life  of  luxurious  apathy  and  sensual  indul- 
gence. Such  was  the  life  into  which,  from  the  operation  of  the 
same  causes,  Louis  the  Fifteenth  had  sunk,  with  his  household  and 


Court,  while  Lafayette  was  rising  to  manhood,  surrounded  by  the- 
contamination  of  their  example.  Had  his  natural  endowments 
been  even  of  the  higher  and  nobler  order  of  such  as  adhere  to  vir- 
tue, even  in  the  lap  of  prosperity  and  in  the  bosom  of  temptation, 
he  might  have  lived  and  died  a  pattern  of  the  Nobility  of  France, 
to  be  classed  in  aftertimes  with  the  Turennes  and  the  Montau- 
siers  of  the  age  of  Louis  the  Fourteenth,  or  with  the  Villars  of 
the  Lamoignons  of  the  age  immediately  preceding  -his  own. 

But  as  in  the  firmament  of  Heaven  that  rolls  over  our  heads 
there  is  among  the  stars  of  the  first  magnitude  one  so  pre-emi- 
nent in  splendor,  as,  in  the  opinion  of  astronomers,  to  constitute 
a  class  by  itself,  so  in  the  fourteen  hundred  years  of  the  French 
Monarchy  among  the  multitudes  of  great  and  mighty  men  which 
it  has  evolved,  the  name  of  Lafayette  stands  imrivallfed  in  the- 
solitude  of  glory.  ' 

In  entering  upon  the  threshold  of  life,,  a  career  w.as  to  open 
before  him.  He  had  the  option  of  the  Court  or  the  Camp..  An 
office  was  tendered  to  him  in  the  household  of  the  King's  bro- 
ther, the  Count  de  Province,  since  successively  a  royal  Exile 
and  a  reinstated  King.  The  servitude  and  inaction  of  a  Court 
had  no  charms  for  him;  he  preferred  a  commission  in  the  army, 
and,  at  the  time  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  was  a  cap- 
tain of  dragoons  in  the  garrison  at  Metz. 

o;  •  «£  • 

There,  at  an  entertainment  given   by  his   relative  the   Mare- 

chal  de  Broglie,  the  Commandant  of  the  place,  to  the  Duke  of 
Gloucester,  brother  to  the  British  King,  and  then  a  transient 


16 


traveller  through  that  part  of  France,  he  learns,  as  an  incident 
of  intelligence  received  that  morning  by  the  English  Prince  from 
London,  that  the  Congress  of  Rebels  at  Philadelphia  had  issued 
a  Declaration  of  Independence.  A  conversation  ensues  upon  the 
causes  which  have  contributed  to  produce  this  event,  and  upon 
the  consequences  which  may  be  expected  to  flow  from  it.  The 
imagination  of  Lafayette  has  caught  across  the  Atlantic  tide  the 
spark  emitted  from  the  Declaration  of  Independence ;  his  heart 
has  kindled  at  the  shock;  and  before  he  slumbers  upon  his  pil- 
low he  has  resolved  to  devote  his  life  and  fortune  to  the  cause,  j 

You  have  before  you  the  cause  and  the  man.  The  self- 
devotion  of  Lafayette  was  twofold.  First,  to  the  people,  main- 
taining a  bold  and  seemingly  desperate  struggle  against  oppres- 
sion, and  for  national  existence.  Secondly,  and  chiefly,  to  the 
principles  of  their  Declaration,  which  then  first  unfurled  before 
his  eyes  the  consecrated  standard  of  human  rights.  To  that 
standard,  without  an  instant  of  hesitation,  he  repaired.  Where 
it  would  lead  him  it  is  scarcely  probable  that  he  himself  then 
foresaw.  It  was  then  identical  with  the  stars  and  stripes  of 
the  American  Union,  floating  to  the  breeze  from  the  Hall  of 
Independence  at  Philadelphia.  Nor  sordid  avarice,  nor  vulgar 
ambition,  could  point  his  footsteps  to  the  pathway  leading  to  that 
banner.  To  the  love  of  ease  or  pleasure  nothing  could  be  more 
repulsive.  Something  may  be  allowed  to  the  beatings  of  the 
youthful  breast  which  make  ambition  virtue,  and  something  to 
the  spirit  of  military  adventure  imbibed  from  his  profession,  and 
which  he  felt  in  common  with  many  others.  France,  Germany, 
Poland,  furnished  to  the  armies  of  this  Union,  in  our  revolutionary 


17 


struggle,  no  inconsiderable  number  of  officers  of  high  rank  and 
distinguished  merit.  The  names  of  Pulaski  and  De  Kalb  are 
numbered  among  the  martyrs  of  our  freedom,  and  their  ashes 
repose  in  our  soil  side  by  side  with  the  canonized  bones  of 
Warren  and  of  Montgomery.  To  the  virtues  of  Lafayette  a 
more  protracted  career  and  happier  earthly  destinies  were  re- 
served. To  the  moral  principle  of  political  action  the  sacrifices 
of  no  other  man  were  comparable  to  his.  Youth,  health,  fortune ; 
the  favor  of  his  King;  the  enjoyment  of  ease  and  pleasure;  even 
the  choicest  blessings  of  domestic  felicity — he  gave*  them  all  for 
toil  and  danger  in  a  distant  land,  and  an  almost  hopeless  cause ; 
but  it  was  the  cause  of  justice,  and  of  the  rights  of  human  kind. 

The  resolve  is  firmly  fixed,  and  it  now  remains  to  be  carried 
into  execution.  On  the  7th  of  December,  1776,  Silas  Deane,  then 
a  secret  agent  of  the  American  Congress  at  Paris,  stipulates  with 
the  Marquis  de  Lafayette  that  he  shall  receive  a  commission,  to 
date  from  that  day,  of  Major  General  in  the  Army  of  the  United 
States;  and  the  Marquis  stipulates  in  return,  to  depart  when  and 
how  Mr.  Deane  shall  judge  proper,  to  serve  the  United  States 
with  all  possible  zeal  without  pay  or  emolument,  reserving  to 
himself  only  the  liberty  of  returning  to  Europe  if  his  family  or 
his  King  should  recall  him. 

Neither  his  family  nor  his  King  were  willing  that  he  should 
depart;  nor  had  Mr.  Deane  the  power  either  to  conclude  this 
contract  or  to  furnish  the  means  of  his  conveyance  to  America. 
Difficulties  rise  up  before  him  only  to  be  dispersed,  and  obstacles 
thicken  only  to  be  surmounted.  The  day  after  the  signature  of 


the  contract,  Mr.  Deane's  agency  was  superseded  by  the  arrival 
of  Doctor  Benjamin  Franklin  and  Arthur  Lee  as  his  colleagues 
iu  commission ;  nor  did  they  think  themselves  authorized  to  con- 
firm his  engagements.  Lafayette  is  not  to  be  discouraged,  The 
Commissioners  extenuate  nothing  of  the  unpromising  condition  of 
their  cause.  Mr.  Deane  avows  his  inability  to  furnish  him  with 
a  passage  to  the  United  States.  "  The  more  desperate  the  cause,?' 
says  Lafayette,  "  the  greater  need  has  it  of  my  services ;  and,  if 
Mr.  Deane  has  no  vessel  for  my  passage,  I  shall  purchase  one 
myself,  and  will  traverse  the  Ocean  with  a  selected  company  of 
my  own  !" 

Other  impediments  arise.  His  design  becomes  known  to  the 
British  Ambassador  at  the  Court  of  Versailles,  who  remonstrates 
to  the  French  Government  against  it.  At  his  instance,  orders 
are  issued  for  the  detention  of  the  vessel  purchased  by  the  Mar- 
quis, and  fitted  out  at  Bordeaux,  and  for  the  arrest  of  his  person. 
To  elttde  the  first  of  these  orders,  the  vessel  is  removed  from 
Bordeaux  to  the  neighboring  port  of  Passage,  within  the  dominion  > 
of  Spain.  The  order  for  his  own  arrest  is  executed;  but  by 
stratagem  and  disguise  he  escapes  from  the  custody  of  those  who 
have  him  in  charge,  and  before  a  second  order  can  reach  him  he 
is  safe  on  the  ocean  wave,  bound  to  the  land  of  Independence 
and  of  Freedom, 

It  had  been  necessary  to  clear  out  the  vessel  for  an  island  of 
the  West  Indies ;  but  once  at  sea  he  avails  himself  of  his  right 
as  owner  of  the  ship,  and  compels  his  captain  to  steer  for  the 
shores  of  emancipated  North  America,  He  lands  with  his  com- 


19 


panions,  on  the  25th  of  April,  1777,  in  South  Carolina,  not  far 
from  Charleston,  and  finds  a  most  cordial  reception  and  hospi- 
table welcome  in  the  house  of  Major  Huger. 

Every  detail  of  this  adventurous  expedition,  full  of  incidents, 
combining  with  the  simplicity  of  historical  truth  all  the  interest 
of  romance,  is  so  well  known  and  so  familiar  to  the  memory  of 
all  who  hear  me,  that  I  pass  them  over  without  further  notice. 

From  Charleston  he  proceeded  to  Philadelphia,  where  the 
Congress  of  the  Revolution  were  in  session,  and  where  he 
offered  his  services  in  the  cause.  Here  again  he  was  met 
with  difficulties,  which  to  men  of  ordinary  minds  would  have 
been  insurmountable.  Mr.  Deane's  contracts  were  so  numerous, 
and  for  offices  of  rank  so  high,  that  it  was  impossible  they  should 
be  ratified  by  the  Congress.  He  had  stipulated  for  the  ap- 
pointment of  other  Major  Generals;  and  in  the  same  contract 
with  that  of  Lafayette,  for  eleven  other  officers,  from  the  rank 
of  Colonel  to  that  of  Lieutenant.  To  introduce  these  officers, 
strangers,  scarcely  one  of  whom  could  speak  the  language  of  the 
country,  into  the  American  array,  to  take  rank  and  precedence 
over  the  native  citizens  whose  ardent  patriotism  had  pointed  them 
to  the  standard  of  their  country,  could  not,  without  great  in- 
justice, nor  without  exciting  the  most  fatal  dissensions,  have 
been  done;  and  this  answer  was  necessarily  given  as  well  to 
Lafayette  as  to  the  other  officers  who  had  accompanied  him 
from  Europe.  His  reply  was  an  offer  to  serve  as  a  volunteer,  and 
without  pay.  Magnanimity  thus  disinterested  could  not  be  re- 
sisted, nor  could  the  sense  of  it  be  worthily  manifested  by  a 


mere  acceptance  of  the  offer.  On  the  31st  of  July,  1777,  there- 
fore, the  following  resolution  and  preamble  are  recorded  upon 
the  Journals  of  Congress : — 

"  Whereas  the  Marquis  de  Lafayette,  out  of  his  great  zeal 
to  the  cause  of  Liberty  in  which  the  United  States  are  engaged, 
has  left  his  family  and  connexions,  and  at  his  own  expense 
come  over  to  offer  his  service  to  the  United  States,  without 
pension  or  particular  allowance,  and  is  anxious  to  risk  his  life 
in  our  cause: 

'•  Resolved,  That  his  service    be  accepted,   and    that    in  con- 
sideration   of   his    zeal,    illustrious  family,  and    connexions,    he 
have  the  rank  and  commission  of  Major  General  in  the  Army 
of  the  United  States." 
. «•&,' a& '  ><it    i£>toi.u|ffl      '  '.I     -.-.      ^'•••••""         -    '"  '?•'•    '}•.?&  tf"'   ~-i 

He  had  the  rank  and  commission,  but  no  command  as  a 
Major  General.  With  this,  all  personal  ambition  was  gratified.; 
and  whatever  services  he  might  perform,  he  could  attain  no 
higher  rank  in  the  American  army.  The  discontents  of  officers 
already  in  the  service,  at  -being  superseded  in  command  by  a 
stripling  foreigner,  were  disarmed ;  nor  was  the  .prudence  of 
Congress  perhaps  without  its  influence  in  withholding  a  com- 
mand, which  but  for  a  judgment  premature  "beyond  the  slow 
advance  of  years,"  might  have  hazarded  something  of  the  sa- 
cred cause  itself  by  confidence  too  hastily  bestowed^ 

,  • 
'' 

The  day  after  the  date  of  his  commission  he  was  introduced 
to  WTashington,  Commander-in-chief  of  the  armies  of  the  Con- 


21 


federation.  It  was  the  critical  period  of  the  campaign  of  1777. 
The  British  army,  commanded  by  Lord  Howe,  was  advancing 
from  the  head  of  Elk,  to  which  they  had  been  transported  by 
sea  from  New  York,  upon  Philadelphia.  Washington,  by  a  coun- 
teracting movement,  had  been  approaching  from  his  line  of  de- 
fence in  the  Jerseys  towards  the  city,  and  arrived  there  on  the 
1st  of  August*  It  was  a  meeting  of  congenial  souls.  At  the 
close  of  it  Washington  gave  the  youthful  stranger  an  invitation 
to  make  the  head  quarters  of  the  Commander-in-Chief  his 
home :  that  he  should  establish  himself  there  at  his  own  time, 
and  consider  himself  at  all  times  as  one  of  his  family.  It  was 
natural  that  in  giving  this  invitation  he  should  remark  the 
contrast  of  the  situation  in  which  it  would  place  him,  with 
that  of  ease,  and  comfort,  and  luxurious  enjoyment,  which  he 
had  left,  at  the  splendid  Court  of  Louis  the  Sixteenth,  and  of 
his  beautiful  and  accomplished,  but  ill-fated  Queen,  then  at  the 
very  summit  of  all  which  constitutes  the  common  estimate  of 
felicity.  How  deep  and  solemn  was  this  contrast !  No  native 
American  had  undergone  the  trial  of  the  same  alternative.  None 
of  them,  save  Lafayette,  had  brought  the  same  tribute,  of  his 
life,  his  fortune,  and  his  honor,  to  a  cause  of  a  country  foreign 
to  his  own.  To  Lafayette  the  soil  of  freedom  was  his  country. 
His  post  of  honor  was  the  post  of  danger.  His  fireside  was 
the  field  of  battle.  He  accepted  with  joy  the  invitation  of 
Washington,  and  repaired  forthwith  to  the  Camp.  The  bond 
of  indissoluble  friendship — the  friendship  of  heroes,  was  sealed 
from  the  first  hour  of  their  meeting,  to  last  throughout  their 
lives  and  to  live  in  the  memory  of  mankind  forever. 


22, 


It  was  perhaps  at  the  suggestion  of  the  American  Commis- 
sioners in  France  that  this  invitation  was  given  by  Washington. 
In  a  letter  from  them  of  the  25th  of  May,  1777,  to  the  Committee  of 
Foreign  Affairs,  they  announced  that  the  Marquis  had  departed  for 
the  United  States  in  a  ship  of  his  own,  accompanied  by  some 
officers  of  distinction,  in  order  to  serve  in  our  armies.  They  ob- 
serve that  he  is  exceedingly  beloved,  and  that  every  body's  good 
wishes  attend  him.  They  cannot  but  hope  that  he  will  meet  with  such 
a  reception  as  will  make  the  country  and  his  expedition  agreeable 
to  him.  They  further  say  that  those  who  censure  it  as  imprudent 
in  him,  do  nevertheless  applaud  his  spirit;  and  they  are  satisfied 
that  civilities  and  respect  shown  to  him  will  be  serviceable  to  our 
cause  in  France,  as  pleasing  not  only  to  his  powerful  relations  and 
to  the  Court,  but  to  the  whole  French  Nation.  They  finally  add, 
that  he  had  left  a  beautiful  young  wife*  and  for  her  sake  parti- 
cularly, they  hoped  that  his  bravery  and  ardent  desire  to  dis- 
tinguish himself  would  be  a  little  restrained  by  the  General's 
(Washington's)  prudence,  so  as  not  to  permit  his  being  hazarded 
much  but  upon  some  important  occasion. 

The  head -quarters  of  Washington,  serving  as  a  volunteer  with 
the  rank  and  commission  of  a  Major  General  without  command, 
was  precisely  the  station  adapted  to  the  development  of  his  cha- 
racter, to  his  own  honor,  and  that  of  the  army,  and  to  the  pru- 
dent management  of  the  country's  cause.  To  him  it  was  at  once 
a  severe  school  of  experience,  and  a  rigorous  test  of  merit.  But 
it  was  not  the  place  to  restrain  him  from  exposure  to  danger. 
The  time  at  which  he  joined  the  Camp  was  one  of  pre-eminent 
peril.  The  British  Government,  and  the  Commander-in-chief  of 


23 

:•, 

the  British  forces,  had  imagined  that  the  possession  of  Phila- 
delphia, combined  with  that  of  the  line  along  the  Hudson  river, 
from  the  Canadian  frontier  to  the  city  of  New  York,  would  be  fatal 
to  the  American  cause.  By  the  capture  of  Burgojne  and  his  army 
that  portion  of  the  project  sustained  a  total  defeat.  iThe  final  issue 
of  the  war  was  indeed  sealed  with  the  capitulation  of  the  17th  of 
October,  1777,  at  Saratoga — sealed,  not  with  the  subjugation,  but 
with  the  independence  of  the  North  American  Union. 

In  the  southern  campaign  the  British  commander  was  more 
successful.  The  fall  of  Philadelphia  was  the  result  of  the  battle 
of  Brandy  wine,  on  the  llth  of  September.  This  was  the  first 
action  in  which  Lafayette  was  engaged,  and  the  first  lesson  of  his 
practical  military  school  was  a  lesson  of  misfortune.  In  the 
attempt  to  rally  the  American  troops  in  their  retreat,  he  received 
a  musket  ball  in  the  leg.  He  was  scarcely  conscious  of  the  wound 
till  made  sensible  of  it  by  the  loss  of  blood,  and  'even  then  ceased 
not  his  exertions  in  the  field  till  he  had  secured  and  covered  the 
retreat. 

This  casualty  confined  him  for  some  time  to  his  bed  at  Phila- 
delphia, and  afterwards  detained  him  some  days  at  Bethlehem ; 
but  within  six  week  he  rejoined  the  head-quarters  of  Washington, 
near  Whitemarsh.  He  soon  became  anxious  to  obtain  a  command 
equal  to  his  rank,  and  in  the  short  space  of  time  that  he  had 
been  with  the  Commander-in-chief,  had  so  thoroughly  obtained 
his  confidence  as  to  secure  an  earnest  solicitation  from  him  to 
Congress  in  his  favor.  In  a  letter  to  Congress  of  the  1st  of 
November,  1777,  he  says:  "The  Marquis  de  Lafayette  is 


24 


extremely  solicitous  of  having  a  command  equal  to  his  rank.  I 
do  not  know  in  what  light  Congress  will  view  the  matter,  but 
it  appears  to  me,  from  a  consideration  of  his  illustrious  and  import- 
ant connexions,  the  attachment  which  he  has  manifested  for  our 
cause,  and  the  consequences  which  his  return  in  disgust  might 
produce,  that  it  will  be  advisable  to  gratify  him  in  his  wishes ;  and 
the  more  so,  as  several  gentlemen  from  France,  who  came  over 
under  some  assurances,  have  gone  back  disappointed  in  their 
expectations.  His  conduct  with  respect  to  them  stands  in  a 
favorable  point  of  view,  having  interested  himself  to  remove  their 
uneasiness,  and  urged  the  impropriety  of  their  making  any  unfa- 
vorable representations  upon  their  arrival  at  home ;  and  in  all  his 
letters  he  has  placed  our  affairs  in  the  best  situation  he  could. 
Besides,  he  is  sensible,  discreet  in  his  manners,  has  made  great 
proficiency  in  our  language,  and  from  the  disposition  he  disco- 
vered at  the  battle  of  Brandy  wine,  possesses  a  large  share  of 

^  •**>''  •'•  ••*• 
bravery  and  military  ardor." 

Perhaps  one  of  the  highest  encomiums  ever  pronounced  of  a  man 
in  public  life,  is  that  of  a  historian  eminent  for  his  profound  acquaint- 
ance with  mankind,  who  in  painting  a  great  character  by  a  single 
line  says  that  he  was  just  equal  to  all  the  duties  of  the  highest  offices 
which  he  attained,  and  never  above  them.  There  are  in  some  men 
qualities  which  dazzle  and  consume  to  little  or  no  valuable  purpose. 
They  seldom  belong  to  the  great  benefactors  of  mankind.  They 
were  not  the  qualities  of  Washington,  or  of  Lafayette.  The  testi- 
monial offered  by  the  American  Commander  to  his  young  friend, 
after  a  probation  of  several  months,  and  after  the  severe  test  of  the 

disastrous  day  of  Brandy  wme»  was  precisely  adapted  to  the  man  in 

' 


25 

whose  favor  it  was  given,  and  to  the  object  which  it  was  to  accom- 
plish. What  earnestness  of  purpose !  what  sincerity  of  conviction  ! 
what  energetic  simplicity  of  expression !  what  thorough  delineation 
of  character !  The  merits  of  Lafayette  to  the  eye  of  Washington 
are  the  candor  and  generosity  of  his  disposition— the  indefatigable 
industry  of  application  which  in  the  course  of  a  few  months  has 
already  given  him  the  mastery  of  a  foreign  language — good  sense — * 
discretion  of  manners,  an  attribute  not  only  unusual  in  early  years 
but  doubly  rare  in  alliance  with  that  enthusiasm  so  signally  marked 
by  his  self-devotion  to  the  American  cause ;  and,  to  crown  all  the 
rest,  the  bravery  and  military  ardor  so  brilliantly  manifested  at 
the  Brandywine.  Here  is  no  random  praise ;  no  unmeaning 
panegyric.  This  cluster  of  qualities,  all  plain  and  simple,  but 
so  seldom  found  in  union  together,  so  generally  incompatible 
with  one  another,  these  are  the  properties  eminently  trustworthy  in 
the  judgment  of  Washington ;  and  these  are  the  properties  which 
his  discernment  has  found  in  Lafayette,  and  which  urge  him  thus 
earnestly  to  advise  the  gratification  of  his  wish  by  the  assignment 
of  a  command  equal  to  the  rank  which  had  been  granted  to  his  zeal 
and  his  illustrious  name. 

•  fo  :.^mT:W''X*' 

The  recommendation  of  Washington  had  its  immediate  effect; 
and  on  the  1st  of  December,  1777,  it  was  resolved  by  Congress  that 
he  should  be  informed  it  was  highly  agreeable  to  Congress  that  the 
Marquis  de  Lafayette  should  be  appointed  to  the  command  of  a 
division  in  the  Continental  Army. 

ft  **£^;' 

He  received  accordingly  such  an  appointment ;  and  a  plan  was 
organized  in  Congress  for  a  second  invasion  of  Canada,  at  the  head 
4 


of  which  he  was  placed.  This  expedition,  originally  projected  with- 
out consultation  with  the  Commander-in-chief,  might  be  connected 
with  the  temporary  dissatisfaction,  in  the  community  and  in  Con- 
gress, at  the  ill  success  of  his  endeavors  to  defend  Philadelphia, 
which  rival  and  unfriendly  partisans  were  too  ready  to  compare  with 
the  splendid  termination,  by  the  capture  of  Burgoyne  and  his  army, 
of  the  Northern  campaign,  under  the  command  of  General  Gates. 
To  foreclose  all  suspicion  of  participation  in  these  views,  Lafayette 
proceeded  to  the  Seat  of  Congress,  and,  accepting  the  important 
charge  which  it  was  proposed  to  assign  to  him,  obtained  at  his. par- 
ticular request  that  he  should  be  considered  as  an  officer  detached 
from  the  army  of  Washington,  and  to  remain  under  his  orders.  He 
then  repaired  in  person  to  Albany,  to  take  command  of  the  troops 
who  were  to  assemble  at  that  place,  in  order  to  cross  the  Lakes  on 
the  ice,  and  attack  Montreal ;  but  on  arriving  at  Albany  he  found 
none  of  the  promised  preparations  in  readiness — they  were  never 
effected.  Congress  some  time  after  relinquished  the  design,  and  the 
Marquis  was  ordered  to  rejoin  the  army  of  Washington. 

In  the  succeeding  month  of  May,  his  military  talent  was  dis- 
played by  the  masterly  retreat  effected  in  the  presence  of  an  over- 
whelming superiority  of  the  enemy's  force  from  the  position  at 
Barren  HilK 

He  was  soon  after  distinguished  at  the  battle  of  Monmouth ;  and 
in  September,  1778,  a  resolution  of  Congress  declared  their  high 
sense  of  his  services,  not  only  in  the  field,  but  in  his  exertions  to 
conciliate  and  heal  dissensions  between  the  officers  of  the  French 
fleet  under  the  command  of  Count  d'Estaing  and  some  of  the  native 


officers  of  our  army.  These  dissensions  had  arisen  in  the  first 
moments  of  co-operation  in  the  service,  and  had  threatened  per- 
nicious consequences. 

In  the  month  of  April*  1776,  the  combined  wisdom  of  the  Count 
de  Vergennes  and  of  M.  Turgot,  the  Prime  Minister  and  the 
Financier  of  Louis  the  Sixteenth,  had  brought  him  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  event  the  most  desirable  to  France  with  regard  to  the  con- 
troversy between  Great  Britain  and  her  American  Colonies,  was 
that  the  insurrection  should  be  suppressed.  This  judgment,  evinc- 
ing only  the  total  absence  of  all  moral  considerations,  in  the 
estimate,  by  these  eminent  statesmen,  of  what  was  desirable  to 
France,  had  undergone  a  great  change  by  the  close  of  the  year  1777. 
The  Declaration  of  Independence  had  changed  the  question  between 
the  parties.1  The  popular  feeling  of  France  was  all  on  the  side  of 
the  Americans.  The  daring  and  romantic  movement  of  Lafayette, 
in  defiance  of  the  Government  itself,  then  highly  favored  by  public 
opinion,  was  followed  by  universal  admiration.  The  spontaneous 
spirit  of  the  people  gradually  spread  itself  even  over  the  rank  cor- 
ruption of  the  Court;  a  suspicious  and  deceptive  neutrality  suc- 
ceeded to  an  ostensible  exclusion  of  the  Insurgents  from  the  ports 
of  France,  till  the  capitulation  of  Burgoyne  satisfied  the  casuists 
of  international  law  at  Versailles  that  the  suppression  of  the  insur- 
rection was  ho  longer  the  most  desirable  of  events;  but  that  the 
United  States  were,  de  facto,  sovereign  and  independent ;  and  that 
France  might  conclude  a  Treaty  of  Commerce  with  them,  without 
giving  just  cause  of  offence  to  the  stepmother  country.  On  the 
6th  of  February,  1778,  a  Treaty  of  Commerce  between  France  and 
the  United  States  was  concluded,  and  with  it,  on  the  same  day,  a 


Treaty  of  eventual  Defensive  Alliance,  to  take  effect  only  in  the 
event  of  Great  Britain's  resenting  by  Avar  against  France  the 
consummation  of  the  Commercial  Treaty.  The  war  immediately 
ensued,  and  in  the  summer  of  1778  a  French  fleet  under  the  com- 
mand of  Count  d'Estaing  was  sent  to  co-operate  with  the  forces  of 
the  United  States  for  the  maintenance  of  their  Independence. 

By  these  events  the  position  of  the  Marquis  de  Lafayette  was 
essentially  changed.  It  became  necessary  for  him  to  reinstate  him- 
self in  the  good  graces  of  his  Sovereign,  oifended  at  his  absenting 
himself  from  his  country  without  permission,  but  gratified  with 
the  distinction  which  Tie  had  acquired  by  gallant  deeds  in  a  ser- 
vice now  become  that  of  France  herself.  At  the  close  -of  the 
campaign  of  1778,  with  the  approbation  of  his  friend  and  patron, 
the  Commander-in-chief,  he  addressed  a  letter  to  the  President 
of  Congress,  representing  his  then  present  circumstances  with  the 
confidence  of  affection  and  gratitude,  observing  that  the  sentiments 
which  bound  him  to  his  country  could  never  be  more  properly 
spoken  of  than  in  the  presence  of  men  who  had  done  so  much 
for^their  own.  "As  long,  continued  he,  as  I  thought  I  could 
dispose  of  myself,  I  made  it  my  pride  and  pleasure  to  fight 
under  American  colors,  in  defence  of  a  cause  which  I  dare  more 
particularly  call  ours,  because  I  had'  the  good  fortune  of  bleeding 
for  her.  Now,  Sir,  that  France  is  involved  in  a  war,  I  am  urged, 
by  a  sense  of  my  duty,  as  well  as  by  the  love  of  my  country, 
to  present  myself  before  the  King,  and  know  in  what  manner 
he  judges  proper  to  employ  my  services.  The  most  agreeable 
of  all  will  always  be  such  as  may  enable  me  to  serve  the  com- 
mon cause  among  those  whose  friendship  I  had  the  happiness  to 


obtain,  and  whose  fortune  I  had  the  honor  to  follow  in  less 
smiling  times.  That  reason,  and  others,  which  I  leave  to  the 
feelings  of  Congress,  engage  me  to  beg  from  them  the  liberty  of 
going  home  for  the  next  winter. 

"  As-  long  as  there  were  any  hopes  of  an  active  campaign,  I 
did  not  think  of  leaving  the  field ;  now  that  I  see  a  very  peace- 
able and  undisturbed  moment,  I  take  this  opportunity  of  waiting 
on  Congress." 

In  the  remainder  of  the  letter  he  solicited  that,  in  the  event 
of  his  request  being  granted,  he  might  be  considered  as  a  soldier 
on  furlough,  heartily  wishing  to  regain  his  colors  and  his  esteemed 
and  beloved  fellow -soldiers.  And  he  closes  with  a  tender  of  any 
services  which  he  might  be  enabled  to  render  to  the  American 
cause  in  his  own  country. 

On  the  receipt  of  this  letter,  accompanied  by  one  from  General 
Washington,  recommending  to  Congress,  in  terms  most  honorable 
to  the  Marquis,  a  compliance  with  his  request,  that  body  imme- 
diately passed  resolutions  granting  him  an  unlimited  leave  of 
absence,  with  permission  to  return  to  the  United  States  at  his  own 
most  convenient  time;  that  the  'President  of  Congress  should 
write  him  a  letter  returning  him  the  thanks  of  Congress  for  that 
-disinterested  zeal  which  had  led  kirn  to  America,  and  for  the 
services  he  had  rendered  to  the  United  States  by  the  exertion 
of  his  courage  and  abilities  on  many  signal  occasions}  and  that 
the  Minister  Plenipotentiary  of  the  United  States  at  the  Court  of 
Versailles  should  be  directed  to  cause  an  elegant  sword,  with 
*tttaV:  <a  ^  •.  *  .  I  !  ;;.;«*%»-;•  ft*-- 


30 


proper  devices,  to.be  made,  and  presented  to  him  in  the  name 
of  the  United  States.  These  resolutions  were  communicated  to 
him  in  a  letter  expressive  of  the  sensibility  congenial  to  them, 
from  the  President  of  Congress,  Henry  Laurens. 

He  embarked  in  January,  1779,  in  the  frigate  Alliance,  at 
Boston,  and  on  the  succeeding  12th  day  of  February  presented 
himself  at  Versailles.  Twelve  months  had  already  elapsed  since 
the  conclusion  of  the  Treaties  of  Commerce  and  of  eventful  Alli- 
ance between  France  and  the  United  States,  They  had  during 
the  greater  part  of  that  time  been  deeply  engaged  in  war  with  a 
common  cause  against  Great  Britain,  and  it  was  the  cause  in 
which  Lafayette  had  been  shedding  his  blood :  yet,  instead  of 
receiving  him  with  open  arms,  as  the  pride  and  ornament  of  his 
country,  a  cold  and  hollow-hearted  order  was  issued  to  him  not 
to  present  himself  at  Court,  but  fo  consider  himself  under  arrest, 
with  permission  to  receive  visits  only  from  his  relations.  This 
ostensible  mark  of  the  Royal  displeasure  was  to  last  eight  days, 
and  Lafayette  manifested  his  sense  of  it  only  by  a  letter  to  the 
Count  de  Vergennes,  inquiring  whether  the  interdiction  upon  him 
to  receive  visits  was  to  be  considered  as  extending  to  that  of 
Doctor  Franklin.  The  sentiment  of  universal  admiration  which 
had  followed  him  at  his  first  departure,  greatly  increased  by  his 
splendid  career  of  service  during  the  two  years  of  his  absence, 
indemnified  him  for  the  indignity  of  the  courtly  rebuke. 

He  remained  in  France  through  the  year  1779,  and  returned 
to  the  scene  of  action  early  in  the  ensuing  year.  He  continued 
in  the  French  service,  and  was  appointed  to  command  the  King's 
own  regiment  of  dragoons,  stationed  during  the  year  in  various 


31 


parts  of  the  Kingdom,  and  holding  an  incessant  correspondence 
with  the  Ministers  of  Foreign  Affairs  and  of  War,  urging  the 
employment  of  a  land  and  naval  force  in  aid  of  the  American 
cause.  "  The  Marquis  de  Lafayette,"  says  Dr.  Franklin,  in  a 
letter  of  the  4th  of  March,  1780,  to  the  President  of  Congress, 
"  who,  during  his  residence  in  France,  has  been  extremely  aealous 
in  supporting  our  cause  on  all  occasions,  returns  again  to  fight 
for  it.  He  is  infinitely  esteemed  and  beloved  here,  and  I  am 
persuaded  will  do  every  tiling  in  his  power  to  merit  a  continu 
ance  of  the  same  affection  from  America." 

Immediately  after  his  arrival  in  the  United  States,  it  was, 
on  the  16th  of  May,  1780,  resolved  in  Congress,  that  they  con- 
sidered his  return  to  America  to  resume  his  command  as  a  fresh 
proof  of  the  disinterested  zeal  and  persevering  attachment  which 
have  justly  recommended  him  to  the  public  confidence  and  ap- 
plause, and  that  they  received  with  pleasure  a  tender  of  the 
further  services  of  so  gallant  and  meritorious  an  officer. 

From  this  time  until  the  termination  of  the  campaign  of  1781, 
by  the  surrender  of  Lord  Cornwallis  and  his  army  at  Yorktown, 
his  service  was  of  incessant  activity,  always  signalized  by  military 
talents  unsurpassed,  and  by  a  spirit  never  to  be  subdued.  At 
the  time  of  the  treason  of  Arnold,  Lafayette  was  accompanying 
his  Commander-in-chief  to  an  important  conference  and  consult- 
ation with  the  French  General,  Rochambeau;  and  then,  as  in 
every  stage  of  the  war,  it  seemed  as  if  the  position  which  he 
occupied,  his  personal  character,  his  individual  relations  with 
Washington,  with  the  officers  of  both  the  allied  armies,  and 


the  armies  themselves,  had  been  specially  ordered  to  promote 
and  secure  that  harmony  and  mutual  good  understanding  indis- 
pensable to  the  ultimate  success  of  the  common  cause.  His 
position,  too,  as  a  foreigner  by  birth,  a  European,  a  volunteer 
in  the  American  service,  and  a  person  of  high  rank  in  his 
native  «ountry,  pointed  him  out  as  peculiarly  suited  to  the 
painful  duty  of  deciding  upon  the  character  of  the  crime,  and 
upon  the  fate  of  the  British  officer,  the  accomplice  and  victim 
of  the  detested  traitor,  Arnold. 

\  i'i,  •.:  ..'"'ft 

In  the  early  part  of  the  campaign  of  1781,  when  Cornwallis 
with  an  overwhelming  force  was  spreading  ruin  and  devastation 
over  the  Southern  portion  of  the  Union,  we  find  Lafayette, 
with  means  altogether  inadequate,  charged  with  the  defence  of 
the  Territory  of  Virginia.  Always  equal  to  the  emergencies  in 
which  circumstances  placed  himyaihis  expedients  for  encountering 
and  surmounting  the  obstacles  which  they  cast  in  his  way  are 
invariably  stamped  with  the  peculiarities  of  his  character.  The 
troops  placed  under  his  command  for  the  defence  of  Virginia 
were  chiefly  taken  from  the  Eastern  regiments,  unseasoned  to 
the  climate  of  the  South,  and  prejudiced  against  it  as  unfavo- 
rable to  the  health  of  the  natives  of  the  more  rigorous  regions 
of  the  North.  Desertions  became  frequent,  till  they  threatened 
the  very  dissolution  of  the  corps.  Instead  of  resorting  to  military 
execution  to  retain  his  men,  he  appeals  to  the  sympathies  of 
honor.  He  states,  in  general  orders,  the  great  danger  and  diffi- 
culty of  the  enterprize  upon  which  he  is  about  to  embark; 
represents  the  only  possibility  by  which  it  can  promise  success, — 
the  faithful  adherence  of  the  soldiers  to  their  chief,  and  his 


S3 


confidence  that  they  will  not  abandon  him.  He  then  adds, 
that  if,  however,  any  individual  of  the  detachment  was  unwilling 
to  follow  him,  a  passport  to  return  to  his  home  should  be 
forthwith  granted  him  upon  his  application.  It  is  to  a  cause  like 
that  of  American  Independence  that  resources  like  this  are 
congenial.  After  these  general  orders,  nothing  more  was  heard 
of  desertion.  The  very  cripples  of  the  army  preferred  paying 
for  their  own  transportation  to  follow  the  corps,  rather  than 
to  ask  for  the  dismission  which  had  been  made  so  easily  accessible 
to  all. 

But  how  shall  the  deficiencies  of  the  military  chest  be  sup- 
plied ?  The  want  of  money  was  heavily  pressing  upon  the  ser- 
vice in  every  direction.  Where  are  the  sinews  of  war?  How 
are  the  troops  to  march  without  shoes,  linen,  clothing  of  all 
descriptions,  and  other  necessaries  of  life?  Lafayette  has  found 
them  all.  From  the  patriotic  merchants  of  Baltimore  he  obtains 
>on  the  pledge  of  his  own  personal  credit,  a  loan  of  money  ade- 
quate to  the  purchase  of  the  materials;  and  from  the  fair  hands 
of  the  daughters  of  the  Monumental  City,  even  then  worthy  to 
be  so  called,  he  obtains  the  toil  of  making  up  the  needed  gar- 
ments. 

The  details  of  the  campaign,  from  its  unpromising  outset,  when 
Cornwallis  the  British  Commander  exulted  in  anticipation  that 
the  boy  could  not  escape  him  till  the  storming  of  the  twin  re- 
doubts, in  emulation  of  gallantry  by  the  valiant  Frenchmen  of 
Viomesnil,  and  the  American  fellow-soldiers  of  Lafayette  led  by 
him  to  victory  at  Yorktown,  must  be  left  to  the  recording  pen 


84 

of  History.    Both  redoubts  were  carried  at  the  point  of  the  sword, 

and  C( 

ington. 


and  Cornwallis,  with  averted  face,  surrendered  his  sword  to  Wash- 


This  was  the  last  vital  struggle  of  the  war,  which  however 
lingered  through  another  year  rather  of  negotiation  than  of  action. 
Immediately  after  the  capitulation  at  Yorktown,  Lafayette  asked 
and  obtained  again  a  leave  of  absence  to  visit  his  family  and  his 
country,  and  with  this  closed  his  military  service  in  the  field  du- 
ring the  Revolutionary  War.  But  it  was  not  for  the  individual 
enjoyment  of  his  renown  that  he  returned  to  France.  The  resolu- 
tions of  Congress  accompanying  that  which  gave  him  a  discretionary 
leave  of  absence,  while  honorary  in  the  highest  degree  to  him  were 
equally  marked  by  a  grant  of  virtual  credentials  for  negotiation 
and  by  the  trust  of  confidential;  powers,  together  with  a  letter 
of  the  warmest  commendation  of  the  gallant  soldier  to  the  favor 
of  his  King.  The  ensuing  year  was  consumed  in  preparations 
for  a  formidable  combined  French  and  Spanish  expedition  against 
the  British  Islands  in  the  West  Indies,  and  particularly  the  Island 
of  Jamaica;  thence  to  recoil  upon  New  York,  and  to  pursue  the 
offensive  war  into  Canada.  The  fleet  destined  for  this  gigantic 
undertaking  was  already  assembled  at  Cadiz ;  and  Lafayette, 
appointed  the  chief  of  the  Staff,  was  there  ready  to  embark  upon 
this  perilous  adventure,  when,  on  the  SOth  of  November,  1782, 
the  preliminary  treaties  of  *  peace  were  concluded  between  his 
Britannic  Majesty  on  one  part,  and  the  Allied  Powers  of  France, 
Spain,  and  the  United  States  of  America,  on  the  other.  The  first 
intelligence  of  this  event  received  by  the  American  Congress  was 
in  the  communication  of  a  letter  from  Lafayette. 


35 


The  war  of  American  Independence  is  closed.     The  People  of 
the  North  American  Confederation  are  in  union,  sovereign  and  in- 
dependent.   Lafayette  at  twenty-five  years  of  age  has  lived  the 
life  of  a  patriarch,  and  illustrated  the  career  of  a  hero.    Had  his 
days  upon  earth  been  then  numbered,  and  had  he  then  slept  with 
his  fathers,  illustrious  as  for  centuries  their  names  had  been,  his 
name  to  the  end  of  time  would  have  transcended  them  all.     For- 
tunate youth !    fortunate  beyond  even   the  measure  of  his  com- 
panions in  arms  with  whom  he  had  achieved  the  glorious  consum- 
mation of  American  Independence !    His  fame  was  all  his  own — 
not  cheaply  earned — not  ignobly  won.     His  fellow-soldiers  had 
been    the    champions    and    defenders    of    their    country.      They 
reaped  for  themselves,  for  their  wives,  their  children,   their   pos- 
terity  to  the    latest  time,  the    rewards    of   their    dangers    and 
their  toils.      Lafayette  had   watched,  and   labored,  and   fought, 
and  bled — not  for  himself,  not  for  his  family,  not,  in  the   first 
instance,    even    for    his    country.       In    the    legendary    tales    of 
Chivalry  we  read  of  tournaments  at   which   a  foreign  and    un- 
known   Knight   suddenly    presents    himself,   armed    in   complete 
steel,    and    with   the    vizor   down    enters    the   ring   to    contend 
with    the    assembled    flower    of   Knighthood    for    the    prize    of 
honor,   to   be    awarded   by   the    hand    of    Beauty ;    bears   it   in 
triumph  away,  and   disappears  from  the  astonished  multitude  of 
competitors  and  spectators  of  the  feats  of  arms.      But  where  in 
the  rolls  of  History,  where  in  the  fictions  of  Romance,   where 
but  in  the  life  of  Lafayette,  has  been  seen  the  noble  stranger, 
flying,  with  the  tribute  of  his  name,  his   rank,  his  affluence,  his 
ease,   his   domestic    bliss,   his  treasure,  his   blood,  to   the  relief 
of   a  suffering  and    distant  land    in   the    hour  of   her    deepest 


36 


calamity — baring  his  bosom  to  her  foes,  and  not  at  tl*e  tran- 
sient pageantry  of  a  tournament,  but  for  a  succession  of  five 
years  sharing  all  the  vicissitudes  of  her  fortunes ;  always 
eager  to  appear  at  the  post  of  danger — tempering  the  glow  of 
youthful  ardor  with  the  cold  caution  of  a  veteran  commander ; 
bold  and  daring  in  action ;  prompt  in  execution  ;  rapid  ia 
pursuit  ;  fertile  in  expedients  ;  unattainable  in  retreat  ;  often, 
exposed,  but  never  surprised,  never  disconcerted;  eluding  his 
enemy  when  within  his  fancied  grasp  ;  bearing  upon  him  with 
irresistible  sway  when  of  force  to  cope  with  him  in  the  con- 
flict of  arms  !  And  what  is  this  but  the  diary  of  Lafayette, 
from  the  day  of  his  rallying  the  scattered  fugitives  of  the 
Brandywine,  insensible  of  the  blood  flowing  from  his  wound, 
to  the  storming  of  the  redoubt  at  Yorktown  1 

Henceforth  as  a  public  man  Layfayette  is  to  be  considered 
as  a  Frenchman,  always  active  and  ardent  to  serve  the  United 
States,  but  no  longer  in  their  service  as  an  officer.  So  trans- 
cendent had  been  his  merits  in ,  the  common  cause,  that  to 
reward  them  the  rule  of  progressive  advancement  in  the  armies 
of  France  was  set  aside  for  him.  He  received  from  the 
Minister  of  War  a  notification  that  from  the  day  of  his  retire- 
ment from  the  service  -of  the  United  States  as  a  Major  General, 
at  the  close  of  the  war,  he  should  hold  the  same  rank  in  the 
armies  of  France,  to  date  from  the  day  of  the  capitulation  of 
Lord  Cornwallis. 

Henceforth  he   is  a  Frenchman,  destined  to  perform  in   the 
history  of  his   country  a    part  as   peculiarly  his  own,  and    not 


less  glorious  than  that  which  he  had  performed  in  the  war  of 
Independence.  A  short  period  of  profound  peace  followed  the 
great  triumph  of  Freedom.  The  desire  of  Lafayette  once  more 
to  see  the  land  of  his  adoption  and  the  associates  of  his  glory, 
the  fellow-soldiers  who  had  become  to  him  as  brothers,  and  the 
friend  and  patron  of  his  youth  who  had  become  to  him  as  a 
father — sympathizing  with  their  desire  once  more  to  see  him — 
to  see  in  their  prosperity  him  who  had,  first  come  to  them  in 
their  affliction — induced  him  in  the  year  1784  to  pay  a  visit  to 
the  United  States. 

On  the  4th.  of  August  of  that  year  he  landed  at  New 
York,  and  in  the  space  of  five  months  from  that  time  visited 
his  venerable  friend  at  Mount  Vernon,  where  he  was  then  living 
in  retirement,  and  traversed  ten  States  of  the  Union;  receiving 
every  where,  from  their  Legislative  Assemblies,  from  the  Mu 
nicipal  Bodies  of  the  cities  and  towns  through  which  he  passed, 
from  the  officers  of  the  army  his  late  associates  (now  restored 
to  the  virtues  and  occupations  of  private  life),  and  even  from 
the  recent  emigrants  from  Ireland,,  who  had.  come  to  adopt 
for  their  country  the  self-emancipated  land,  addresses  of  gratu- 
lation  and  of  joy — the  effusions  of  hearts  grateful  in  the  enjoy- 
ment of  the  blessings  for  the  possession  of  which  they  had 
been  so  largely  indebted  to  his  exertions — and,  finally,  from 
the  ,-  United  States  of  America  in  Congress  assembled  at 
Treuton. 

On  the  9th  of  December  it  was  resolved  by  that  body  that 
a  committee  to  consist  of  one  member  from  each  State   should 


58 


be  appointed  to  receive,  and  in  the  name  of  Congress  take  leave 
of  the  Marquis.  That  they  should  be  instructed  to  assure  him 
that  Congress  continued  to  entertain  the  same  high  sense  of  his 
abilities  and  zeal  to  promote  the  welfare  of  America,  both  here 
and  in  Europe,  which  they  had  frequently  expressed  and  mani- 
fested on  former  occasions,  and  which  the  recent  marks  of  his 
attention  to  their  commercial  and  other  interest  had  perfectly 
confirmed.  "  That,  as  his  uniform  and  unceasing  attachment  to 
to  this  country  has  resembled  that  of  a  patriotic  citizen,  the 
United  States  regard  him  with  particular  affection,  and  will  not 
cease  to  feel  an  interest  in  whatever  may  concern  his  honor  and 
prosperity,  and  that  their  best  and  kindest  wishes  will  always 
attend  him." 

And  it  was  further  resolved,  that  a  letter  be  written  to  his 
Most  Christian  Majesty,  to  be  signed  by  his  Excellency  the 
President  of  Congress,  expressive  of  the  high  sense  which  the 
United  States  in  Congress  assembled  entertain  of  the  zeal, 
talents,  and  meritorious  services  of  the  Marquis  de  Lafayette, 
and  recommending  him  to  the  favor  and  patronage  of  his 
Majesty. 

The  first  of  these  resolutions  was,  on  the  next  day,  carried 
into  execution.  At  a  solemn  interview  with  the  Committee  of 
Congress,  received  in  their  Hall,  and  addressed  by  the  Chairman 
of  their  Committee,  John  Jay,  the  purport  of  these  resolutions 
was  communicated  to  him.  He  replied  in  terms  of  fervent 
sensibility  for  the  kindness  manifested  personally  to  himself; 
and  with  allusions  to  the  situation,  the  prospects,  and  the  duties 


,39 


of  the  People  of  this  country,  he  pointed  out  the  great  interests 
which  he  believed  it  indespensable  to  their  welfare  that  they 
should  cultivate  and  cherish.  In  the  following  memorable  sen- 
tences the  ultimate  objects  of  his  solicitude  are  disclosed  in  a 
tone  deeply  solemn  and  impressive  4— 

"May  this  immense  Temple  of  Freedom,"  said  he,  "ever 
stand,  a  lesson  to  oppressors,  an  example  to  the  oppressed,  a 
sanctuary  for  the  rights  of  mankind!  and  may  these  happy 
JJnited  States  attain  that  complete  splendor  and  prosperity  which 
will  illustrate  the  blessings  of  their  Government,  and  for  ages 
to  come  rejoice  the  departed  souls  of  its  founders !" 

Fellow-citizens!  Ages  have  passed  away  since  these  words 
were  spoken ;  but  ages  are  the  years  of  the  existence  of  Na- 
tions. The  founders  of  this  immense  Temple  of  Freedom  have 
all  departed,  save  here  and  there  a  solitary  exception,  even 
while  I  speak,  at  the  point  of  taking  wing.  The  prayer  of 
Lafayette  is  not  yet  consummated.  Ages  upon  ages  are  still 
to  pass  away  before  it  can  have  its  full  accomplishment;  and 
for  its  full  accomplishment,  his  spirit,  hovering  over  our  heads, 
in  more  than  echoes  talks  around  these  walls.  It  repeats  the 
prayer  which  from  his  lips  fifty  years  ago  was  at  once  a  parting 
blessing  and  a  prophecy ;  for  were  it  possible  for  the  whole 
human  race  now  breathing  the  breath  of  life  to  be  assembled 
within  this  Hall,  your  Orator  would,  in  your  name  and  in 
that  of  your  constituents,  appeal  to  them  to  testify  for  your 
fathers  of  the  last  generation,  that,  so  far  as  has  depended 
upon  them,  the  blessing  of  Lafayette  has  been  prophecy!  Yes! 


40 


this  immense  Temple  of  Freedom  still  stands,  a  lesson  to  op- 
pressors, an  example  to  the  oppressed,  and  a  sanctuary  for  the 
rights  of  mankind !  Yes  !  with  the  smiles  of  a  benignant  Pro- 
vidence, the  splendor  and  prosperity  of  these  happy  United 
States  have  illustrated  tire  blessings  of  their  Government,  and, 
we  may  humbly  hope,  have  rejoiced  the  departed  souls  of  its 
founders.  For  the  past  your  fathers  and  you  have  been  respon- 
sible. The  charge  of  the  future  devolves  upon  you  and  upon 
your  children.  The  vestal  fire  of  Freedom  is  in  your  custody  ! 
May  the  souls  of  its  departed  founders  never  be  called  to 
witness  its  extinction  by  neglect,  nor  a  soil  upon  the  puritj 
of  its  keepers! 

With  this  valedictory,  Lafayette  took,  as  he  and  those  who- 
heard  him  then  believed,  a  final  leave  of  the  People  of  the 
United  States.  He  returned  to  Prance,  and'  arrived  at  Paris 
on  the  25th  of  January,  1785. 

: »          .  .•  .-.      .       .        ,.- 

He  continued  to  take  a  deep  interest  in  the  concerns  of 
the  United  States,  and  exerted  his  influence  with  the  French 
Government  to  obtain  reductions  of  duties  favorable  to  their 
commerce  and  fisheries.  In  the  summer  of  1786  he  visited 
several  of  the  German  Courts,  and  attended  the  last  great  review 
by  Frederick  the  Second  of  his  veteran  army — a  review  un- 
usually splendid,  and  specially  remarkable  by  the  attendance  of 
many  of  the  most  distinguished  military  commanders  of  Europe. 
In  the  same  year  the  Legislature  of  Virginia  manifested  the 
continued  recollection  of  his  services  rendered  to  the  People 
ef  that  Commonwealth,  by  a  complimentary  token  of  gratitude 


41 


not  less  honorable  than  it  was  unusual.  They  resolved  that 
two  busts  of  Lafayette,  to  be  executed  by  the  celebrated 
sculptor  Houdon,  should  be  procured  at  their  expense ;  that 
one  of  them  should  be  placed  in  their  own  Legislative  Hall, 
and  the  other  presented,  in  their  name,  to  the  municipal  au- 
thorities of  the  city  of  Paris.  It  was  accordingly  presented 
by  Mr.  Jefferson,  then  Minister  Plenipotentiary  of  the  United 
States  in  France,  and  by  the  permission  of  Louis  the  Six- 
teenth was  accepted,  and  with  appropriate  solemnity  placed  irr 
one  of  the  Halls  of  the  Hotel  die  Tille  of  the  Metropolis  of 
France; 

We  have  gone  through  one  stage  of  the  life  of  Lafayette  r 
we  are  now  to  see  him  acting  upon  another  theatre — in  a  cause 
still  essentially  the  same^  but  in  the  application  of  its  prin- 
ciples to  his  own  country. 

The  immediately  originating  question  which  occasioned  the 
French  Revolution  was  the  same  with  that  from  which  the 
American  Revolution  had  sprung— Taxation  of  the  People  without 
their  consent.  For  nearly  two  centuries  the  Kings  of  France 
had  been  accustomed  to  levy  taxes  upon  the  People  by  Royal 
Ordinances..  But  it  was  necessary  that  these  Ordinances  should 
be  registered  in  the  Parliaments  or  Judicial  Tribunals;  and 
these  Parliaments  claimed  the  right  of  remonstrating  against 
them,  and  sometimes  refused  the  registry  of  them  itself.  The 
members  of  the  Parliaments  held  their  offices  by  purchase,  but 
were  appointed  by  the  King  and  were  subject  to  banishment 
or  imprisonment  at  his  pleasure.  Louis  the  Fifteenth,  towards 


42 


the  close  of   his  reign   had  abolished  the   Parliaments,  but  they 
had   been   restored  at  the  accession  of  his   successor. 

The  finances  of  the  Kingdom  were  in  extreme  disorder.  The 
Minister,  or  Comptroller  General,  De  Calonne,  after  attempting 
various  projects  for  obtaining  the  supplies,  the  amount  and  need  of 
which  he  was  with  lavish  hand  daily  increasing,  bethought  himself 
at  last  of  calling  for  the  counsel  of  others.  He  prevailed  upon 
the  King  to  convoke,  not  the  States  General,  but  an  Assembly  of 
Notables.  There  was  something  ridiculous  in  the  very  name  by 
'which  this  meeting  *fyas  called,  but  it  consisted  of  a  selection  from 
all  the  Grandees  and  Dignitaries  of  the  Kingdom.  The  two  brothers 
of  the  King,  all  the  Princes  of  the  blood,  Archbishops  and  Bishops, 
Dukes  and  Peers,  the  Chancellor  and  Presiding  Members  of  the 
Parliaments,  distinguished  Members  of  the  Noblesse,  and  the 
Mayors  and  Chief  Magistrates  of  a  few  of  the  principal  cities  of 
the  Kingdom,  constituted  this  Assembly.  It  was  a  representation 
of  every  interest  but  that  of  the  People.  They  were  appointed 
by  the  King,  were  members  of  the  highest  Aristocracy,  and  were 
assembled  with  the  design  that  their  deliberations  should  be  con- 
fined exclusively  to  the  subjects  submitted  to  their  consideration 
by  the  Minister.  These  were  certain  plans  devised  by  him  for 
replenishing  the  insolvent  Treasury,  by  assessments  upon  the 
privileged  classes,  the  very  Princes,  Nobles,  Ecclesiastics,  and 
Magistrates  exclusively  represented  in  the  Assembly  itself. 

Of  this  meeting  the  Marquis  de  Lafayette  was  a  member.  It 
was  held  in  February,  1787,  and  terminated  in  the  overthrow 
and  banishment  of  the  Minister  by  whom  it  had  been  convened. 
In  the  fiscal  concerns  which  absorbed  *he  care  and  attention  of 


43 


others,  Lafayette  took  comparatively  little  interest.  His  views 
were  more  comprehensive. 

The  Assembly  consisted  of  one  hundred  and  thirty-seven 
persons,  and  divided  itself  into  seven  sections  or  bureaux,  each 
presided  by  a  Prince  of  the  blood.  Lafayette  was  allotted  to 
the  division  under  the  Presidency  of  the  Count  d'Artois,  the 
younger  brother  of  the  King,  and  since  known  as  Charles  the 
Tenth.  The  propositions  made  by  Lafayette  were—  - 

1.  The  suppression  of  Lettres   de  Cachet,  and  the  abolition 
of  all  arbitrary  imprisonment, 

2.  The  establishment  of  religious  toleration,  and  the  restoration 

of  the  Protestants  to  their  civil  rights. 

•'.  ..•>.  •    .,:«..>  ?,,,-,.  ,;\r: 

3.  The    convocation    of  a   National   Assembly    representing 
the    People    of  France  —  Personal   Liberty  —  Religious    Liberty  — 
and  a  Representative  Assembly  of  the  People.    These  were  his 
demands. 

;  4*<i  v;vvi'-'.'>£T  '  ••'>    '-      ,-  \.  .,"•'.-    i    H.  .    .-, 

The  first  and    second    of   them    produced,  perhaps,  at    the 

time,  no  deep  impression  upon  the  Assembly,  nor  upon  the 
public.  Arbitrary  imprisonment,  and  the  religious  persecution 
of  the  Protestants  had  become  universally  odious.  They  were 
worn-out  instruments,  even  in  the  hands  of  those  who  wielded 
them.  There  was  none  to  defend  them. 

But    the    demand    for    a    National    Assembly  startled    the 


44 


Prince  at  the  head  of  the  Bureau*  What!  said  the  Count 
d'Artois,  do  you  ask  for  the  States  General  ?  Yes,  Sir,  was 
the  answer  of  Lafayette,  and  for  something  yet  better.  You 
desire  then,  replied  the  Prince,  that  I  should  take  in  writing, 
and  report  to  the  King,  that  the  motion  to  convoke  the  States 
General  has  been  made  by  the  Marquis  de  Lafayette?  "Yes, 
Sir:"  and  the  name  of  Lafayette  was  accordingly  reported  to 
the  King. 

The  Assembly  of  Notables  was  dissolved — De  Calonne  was 
displaced  and  banished,  and  his  successor  undertook  to  raise 
the  needed  funds  by  the  authority  of  Royal  Edicts.  The  war 
of  litigation  with  the  Parliaments  recommenced,  which  termi- 
nated only  with  a  positive  promise  that  the  States  General 
should  be  convoked. 

From  that  time  a  total  revolution  of  Government  in  France 
was  in  progress.  It  has  been  a  solemn,  a  sublime,  often  a 
most  painful,  and  yet,  in  the  contemplation  of  great  results,  a 
refreshing  and  cheering  contemplation.  I  cannot  follow  it  in 
its  overwhelming  multitude  of  details,  even  as  connected  with 
the  Life  and  Character  of  Lafayette.  A  second  Assembly  of 
Notables  succeeded  the  first;  and  then  an  Assembly  of  the 
States  General,  first  to  deliberate  in  separate  orders  of  Clergy, 
Mobility,  and  Third  Estate;  but,  finally,  constituting  itself  a 
National  Assembly,  and  forming  a  Constitution  of  limited  Mo- 
narchy, with  an  hereditary  Royal  Executive,  and  a  Legislature 
in  a  single  Assembly  representing  the  People. 

Lafayette    was   a   member   of    the    States   General   first  as- 


sembled.  Their  meeting  was  signalized  by  a  struggle  between 
the  several  orders  of  which  they  were  composed,  which  resulted 
in  breaking  them  all  down  into  one  National  Assembly. 

The  convocation  of  the  States  General  had,  in  one  respect, 
operated,  in  the  progress  of  the  French  Revolution,  like  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  in  that  of  North  America.  It  had 
changed  the  question  in  controversy.  It  was,  on  the  part  of 
the  King  of  France,  a  concession  that  he  had  no  lawful  power 
to  tax  the  People  without  their  consent.  The  States  General, 
therefore,  met  with  this  admission  already  conceded  by  the  King. 
In  the  American  conflict  the  British  Government  never  yielded 
the  concession.  They  undertook  to  maintain  their  supposed'' 
right  of  arbitrary  taxation  by  force;  and  then  the  People  of 
the  Colonies  renounced  all  community  of  Government,  not  only 
with  the  King  and  Parliament,  but  with  the  British  Nation. 
They  reconstructed  the  fabric  of  Government  for  themselves, 
and  held  the  People  of  Britain  as  foreigners — friends  in  peace — 
enemies  in  war. 

The  concession  by  Louis  the  Sixteenth,  implied  in  the 
convocation  of  the  States  General,  was  a  virtual  surrender  of 
absolute  power — an  acknowledgment  that,  as  exercised  by  him- 
self and  his  predecessors,  it  had  been  usurped.  It  was  in 
substance  an  abdication  of  his  Crown.  There  was  no  power 
which  he  exercised  as  King  of  France,  the  lawfulness  of 
which  was  not  contestable  on  the  same  principle  which  denied 
him  the  right  of  taxation.  When  the  Assembly  of  the  States 

General    met    at   Versailles,  in    Mav,  1789,  there    was    but    a 

• 


46 


shadow  of  the  Royal  authority  left.  They  felt  that  the  power 
of  the  Nation  was  in  their  hands,  and  they  were  not  sparing 
in  the  u«e  of  it.  The  Representatives  of  the  Third  Estate, 
double  in  numbers  to  those  of  the  Clergy  and  the  Nobility* 
constituted  themselves  a  National  Assembly,  and  as  a  signal 
for  the  demolition  of  all  privileged  orders,  refused  to  deliberate 
in  separate  Chambers,  and  thus  compelled  the  Representatives 
of  the  Clergy  and  Nobility  to  merge  their  separate  existence 
in  the  general  mass  of  the  popular  Representation. 

Thus  the  edifice  of  society  was  to  be  reconstructed  in  France 
as  it  had  been  in  America.  The  King  made  a  feeble  attempt  to 
overawe  the  Assembly,  by  calling  regiments  of  troops  to  Versailles, 
and  surrounding  with  them  the  hall  of  their  meeting.  But  there 
was  defection  in  the  army  itself,  and  even  the  person  of  the  King 
soon  ceased  to  be  at  his  own  disposal.  On  the  llth  of  July,  1789, 
in  the  midst  of  the  fermentation  which  had  succeeded  the  fall  of 
the  Monarchy,  and  while  the  Assembly  was  surrounded  by  armed 
soldiers,  Lafayette  presented  to  them  his  Declaration  of  Rights — 
the  first  declaration  of  human  rights  ever  proclaimed  in  Europe. 
It  was  adopted,  and  became  the  basis  of  that  which  the  Assembly 
promulgated  with  their  Constitution. 

It  was  in  this  hemisphere,  and  in  our  own  country,  that  all  its 
principles  had  been  imbibed.  At  the  very  moment  when  the  De- 
claration was  presented,  the  convulsive  struggle  between  the  ex- 
piring Monarchy  and  the  new-born  but  portentous  anarchy  of  the 
Parisian  populace  was  taking  place.  The  Royal  Palace  and  the 
Hall  of  the  Assembly  was  surrounded  with  troops,  and  insurrection 


47 

was  kindling  at  Paris.  In  the  midst  of  the  popular  commotion,  a 
deputation  of  sixty  members,  with  Lafayette  at  their  head,  was 
sent  from  the  Assembly  to  tranquilize  the  People  of  Paris,  and 
that  incident  was  the  occasion  of  the  institution  of  the  National 
Guard  throughout *  the  Realm,  and  of  the  appointment,  with  the 
approbation  of  the  King,  of  Laiayette  as  their  General  Com- 
mander-in-chief. 

This  event,  without  vacating  his  seat  in  the  National'  As- 
sembly, connected  him  at  once  with  the  military  and  the  popular 
movement  of  the  Revolution.  The  National  Guard  was  the  armed 
militia  of  the  whole  Kingdom,  embodied  for  the  preservation  of 
order,  and  the  protection  of  persons  and'  property,  as  well  as  for 
the  establishment  of  the  liberties  of  the  People.  In  his  double 
capacity  of  Commander  General  of  this  force,  and  of  a  Repre- 
sentative in  the  Constituent  Assembly,  his  career,  for  a  period  of 
more  than  three  years,  was  beset  with  the  most  imminent  dangers, 
and  with  difficulties  beyond  all  human  power  to  surmount. 

The  ancient  Monarchy  of  France  had  crumbled  in-to  ruins. 
A  National  Assembly,  formed  by  an  irregular  Representation  of 
Clergy,  Nobles,  and  Third  Estate,  after  melting  at  the  fire  of  a 
revolution  into  one  body,  had  transformed  itself  into  a  Constituent 
Assembly  representing  the  People,  had  assumed  the  exercise  of 
all  the  powers  of  Government,,  extorted  from  the  hands  of  the 
King,  and  undertaken  to  form  a  Constitution  for  the  French 
Nation,  founded  at  once  upon  the  theory  of  human  rights,  and 
upon  the  preservation  of  a  royal  hereditary  Crown  upon  the  head 
of  Louis  the  Sixteenth.  Lafayette  sincerely  believed  that  such  a 
system  would  not  be  absolutely  incompatible  with  the  nature  of 


48 


-things.  An  hereditary  Monarchy,  surrounded  by. popular  institu- 
tions, presented  itself  to  his  imagination  as  a  practicable  form  of 
government;  nor  is  it  certain  that  even  to  his  last  days  he  ever 
^abandoned  this  persuasion.  The  element  of  hereditary  Monarchy 
in  this  Constitution  was  indeed  not  congenial  with  it.  The  proto- 
type from  which  the  whole  fabric  had  been  drawn,  had  no  such 
element  in  its  composition.  A  feeling  of  generosity,  of  compassion, 
of  commiseration  with  the  unfortunate  Prince  then  upon  the 
throne,  who  had  been  his  Sovereign,  and  for  his  ill-fated  family, 
mingled  itself,  perhaps  unconsciously  to  himself,  with  his  well- 
reasoned  faith  in  the  abstract  principles  of  a  republican  creed. 
The  total  abolition  of  the  monarchical  feature  undoubtedly  be- 
longed to  his  theory,  but  the  family  of  Bourbon  had  still  a  strong 
hold  on  the  affections  of  the  French  People ;  History  had  not  made 
up  a  record  favorable  to  the  establishment  of  elective  Kings — a 
strong  Executive  Head  was  absolutely  necessary  to  curb  the  im- 
petuosities of  the  People  ef  France ;  and  the  same  doctrine  which 
played  upon  the  fancy,  and  crept  upon  the  kind-hearted  bene- 
volence of  Lafayette,  was  adopted  by  a  large  majority  of  the  Na- 
tional Assembly,  sanctioned  by  the  suffrages  of  its  most  intel- 
ligent, virtuous,  and  patriotic  members,  and  was  finally  embodied . 
in  that  royal  democracy,  the  result  of  their  labors,  sent  forth  to 
the  world,  under  the  guarantee  of  numberless  oaths,  as  the  Con- 
stitution of  France  for  all  .aftertime. 

But  during  the  same  period  after  the  first  meeting  of  the 
States  General,  and  while  they  were  in  actual  conflict  with  the 
expiring  energies  of  the  Crown,  and  with  the  exclusive  privi- 
leges of  the  Clergy  and  Nobility,  another  portentous  power 
had  arisen,  and  entered  with  terrific  activity  into  the  contro- 

/  V 


49 


rersies  of  the  time.  This  was  the  power  of  popular  insur- 
rection, organized  by  voluntary  associations  of  clubs,  and 
impelled  to  action  by  the  municipal  authorities  of  the  City  of 
Paris. 

The  first  movements  of  the  People  in  the  state  of  insur 
rection  took  place  on  the  12th  of  July,  1789,  and  issued  in 
the  destruction  of  the  Bastile,  and  in  the  murder  of  its  Go- 
vernor, and  of  several  other  persons,  hung  up  at  lamp-posts, 
or  torn  to  pieces  by  the  frenzied  multitude,  without  form  of 
trial  and  without  shadow  of  guilt. 

The  Bastile  had  long  been  odious  as  the  place  of  confine- 
ment of  persons  arrested  by  arbitrary  orders  for  offences  against 
the  Government,  and  its  destruction  was  hailed  by  most  of 
the  friends  of  Liberty  throughout  the  world  as  an  act  of  pa- 
triotism and  magnanimity  on  the  part  of  the  People.  The 
brutal  ferocity  of  the  murders  was  overlooked  or  palliated  in  the 
glory  of  the  achievement  of  razing  to  its  foundations  the  exe- 
crated Citadel  of  Despotism.  But,  as  the  summary  justice  of 
insurrection  can  manifest  itself  only  by  destruction,  the  ex- 
ample once  set  became  a  precedent  for  a  series  of  years  for 
scenes  so  atrocious,  and  for  butcheries  so  merciless  and  horrible, 
that  memory  revolts  at  the  task  of  recalling  them  to  the  mind. 

It  would  be  impossible,  within  the  compass  of  this  Discourse, 
to  follow  the  details  of  the  French  Revolution  to  the  final  de- 
thronement of  Louis  the  Sixteenth,  and  the  extinction  of  the 

Constitutional  Monarchy  of  France,  on  the  10th  of  August,  1792. 

7 


V  -• '  '  -^ 

50 

During  that  period  the  two  distinct  Powers  were  in  continual 
operation — sometimes  in  concert  with  each  other,  sometimes  at 
irreconcilable  opposition.  Of  these  Powers,  one  was  the  People 
of  France,  represented  by  the  Parisian  populace  in  insurrec- 
tion ;  the  other  was  the  People  of  France,  represented  suc- 
cessively by  the  Constituent  Assembly  which  formed  the 
Constitution  of  1791,  and  by  the  Legislative  Assembly  elected 
to  carry  it  into  execution. 

The  movements  of  the  insurgent  Power  were  occasionally 
convulsive  and  cruel,  without  mitigation  or  mercy.  Guided 
by  secret  springs,  prompted  by  vindictive  and  sanguinary  am- 
bition, directed  by  hands  unseen  to  objects  of  individual 
aggrandizement,  its  agency  fell  like  the  thunderbolt,  and  swept 
like  the  whirlwind. 

The  proceedings  of  the  Assemblies  were  deliberative  and 
intellectual.  They  began  by  grasping  at  the  whole  power  of 
the  Monarchy,  and  they  finished  by  sinking  under  the  dictation 
of  the  Parisian  populace.  The  Constituent  Assembly  numbered 
among  its  members  many  individuals  of  great  ability  and  of 
pure  principles,  but  they  were  overawed  and  domineered  by 
that  other  Representation  of  the  People  of  France,  which, 
through  the  instrumentality  of  the  Jacobin  Club  and  the  Munici- 
pality of  Paris,  disconcerted  the  wisdom  of  the  wise,  and  scat- 
tered to  the  winds  the  counsels  of  the  prudent.  It  was  impos- 
sible that  under  the  perturbations  of  such  a  controlling  power,  a 
Constitution  sniped  to  the  character  and  circumstances  of  the 
Nation  should  be  formed. 


"51 


Through  the  whote  of  this  period  the  part  performed  by 
Lafayette  was  without  parallel  in  history.  The  annals  of  the 
human  race  exhibit  no  other  instance  of  a  position  comparable 
for  its  unintermitted  perils,  its  deep  responsibilities,  and  its 
providential  issues,  with  that  which  he  occupied  as  Commander 
General  of  the  National  Guard,  and  as  a  leading  member  of  the 
Constituent  Assembly.  In  the  numerous  insurrections  of  the 
People  he  saved  the  lives  of  multitudes  devoted  as  victims,  and 
always  at  the  most  imminent  hazard  of  his  own.  On  the  5th 
and  6th  of  October,  1789,  he  saved  the  lives  of  Louis  the  Six- 
teenth and  of  his  Queen.  He  escaped  time  after  time  the 
Saggers  sharpened  by  princely  conspiracy  on  one  hand,  and  by 
popular  frenzy  on  the  other.  He  witnessed  too,  without  being 
able  to  prevent  it,  the  butchery  of  Foulon  before  his  eyes;  and 
the  reeking  heart  of  Berthier,  torn  from  his  lifeless  trunk,  was 
held  up  in  exulting  triumph  before  him.  On  this  occasion  and  on 
another  he  threw  up  his  commission  as  Commander  of  the  Na- 
tional Guards;  but  who  could  have  succeeded  him  even  with 
equal  power  to  restrain  these  volcanic  excesses  ?  At  the  earnest 
solicitation  of  those  who  well  knew  that  his  place  could  never  be 
supplied,  he  resumed  and  continued  in  the  command  until  the 
solemn  proclamation  of  the  Constitution,  upon  which  he  defini- 
tively laid  it  down  and  retired  to  private  life  upon  his  estate  in 
Auvergne. 

As  a  member  of  the  Constituent  Assembly,  it  is  not  in  the 
detailed  organization  of  the  Government  which  they  prepared, 
that  his  spirit  and  co-operation  is  to  be  traced.  It  is  in  the 
principles  which  he  proposed  and  infused  into  the  system.  As 


at  the  first  Assembly  of  Notables  his  voice  had  been  raised  for 
the  abolition  of  arbitrary  imprisonment,  for  the  extinction  of 
religious  intolerance,  and  for  the  representation  of  the  People, 
so  in  the  National  Assembly  besides  the  Declaration  of  Rights 
which  formed  the  basis  of  the  Constitution  itself,  he  made  or 
supported  the  motions  for  the  establishment  of  trial  by  jv.ry,  for 
the  gradual  emancipation  of  slaves,  for  the  freedom  of  the  Press, 
for  the  abolition  of  all  titles  of  nobility,  and  for  the  declaration 
of  equality  of  all  the  citizens,  and  the  suppression  of  all  the 
privileged  orders,  without  exception  of  the  Princes  of  the  royal 
family.  Thus,  while  as  a  legislator  he  was  spreading  tne 
principles  of  universal  liberty  over  the  whole  surface  of  the 
State,  as  Commander-in-chief  of  the  armed  force  of  the  Nation, 
he  was  controlling,  repressing,  and  mitigating,  as  far  as  it  could 
be  effected  by  human  power,  the  excesses  of  the  People. 

The  Constitution  was  at  length  proclaimed,  and  the  Con- 
stituent National  Assembly  was  dissolved.  In  advance  of  this 
event,  the  sublime  spectacle  of  the  Federation  was  exhibited  on 
the  14th  of  July,  1790,  the  first  anniversary  of  the  destruction 
of  the  Bastile.  There  was  an  ingenious  and  fanciful  association 
of  ideas  in  the  selection  of  that  day.  The  Bastile  was  a  State 
Prison,  a  massive  structure,  which  had  stood  four  hundred 
years,  every  stone  of  which  was  saturated  with  sighs  and  tears, 
and  echoed  the  groans  of  four  centuries  of  oppression.  It  was 
the  very  type  and  emblem  of  the  despotism  which  had  so  long 
weighed  upon  France.  Demolished  from  its  summit  to  its 
foundation  at  the  first  shout  of  Freedom  from  the  People, 
what  day  could  be  more  appropriate  than  its  anniversary  for 


53 


the  day  of  solemn  consecration  of  the  new  fabric  of   Govern- 
ment, founded  upon  the   rights  of  man  ? 


I  shall  not  describe  the  magnificent  and  melancholy  pageant 
of  that  day.  It  has  been  done  by  abler  hands,  and  in  a  style 
which  could  only  be  weakened  and  diluted  by  repetition.*  The 
religious  solemnity  of  the  mass  was  performed  by  a  Prelate,  then 
eminent  among  the  members  of  the  Assembly  and  the  dignitaries 
of  the  land ;  still  eminent,  after  surviving  the  whole  circle  of  sub- 
sequent revolutions.  No  longer  a  father  of  the  Church  but  among 
the  most  distinguished  laymen  and  most  celebrated  statesmen 
of  France,  his  was  the  voice  to  invoke  the  blessing  of  Heaven 
upon  this  new  Constitution  for  his  liberated  country;  and  he  and 
Louis  the  Sixteenth,  and  Lafayette,  and  thirty  thousand  dele- 
gates from  all  the  Confederated  National  Guards  of  the  Kingdom, 
in  the  presence  of  Almighty  God  and  of  five  hundred  thousand 
of  their  countrymen,  took  the  oath  of  fidelity  to  the  Nation,  to 
the  Constitution,  and  all,  save  the  Monarch  himself,  to  the  King. 
His  corresponding  oath  was,  of  fidelity  to  discharge  the  duties 
of  his  high  office,  and  to  the  People. 

Alas !  and  was  it  all  false  and  hollow  !  had  these  oaths  no 
more  substance  than  the  breath  that  ushered  them  to  the  winds! 
It  is  impossible  to  look  back  upon  the  short  and  turbulent  exist- 
ence of  this  royal  democracy,  to  mark  the  frequent  paroxysms 
of  popular  frenzy  by  which  it  was  assailed  and  the  catastrophe 
by  which  it  perished,  and  to  believe  that  the  vows  of  all  who 
swore  to  support  it  were  sincere.  But,  as  well  might  the 

*  In  the  Address  to  the  young  men  of  Boston,  by  Edward  Everett. 


54 


sculptor  of  a  block  of  marble,  after  exhausting  his  genius  and  his 
art  in  giving  it  a  beautiful  human  form,  call  God  to  witness  that 
it  shall  perform  all  the  functions  of  animal  life,  as  the  Constitu- 
ent Assembly  of  France  could  pledge  the  faith  of  its  members 
that  their  royal  democracy  should  work  as  a  permanent  or- 
ganized form  of  government.  The  Declaration  of  Rights  con- 
tained all  the  principles  essential  to  freedom.  The  frame  of 
government  was  radically  and  irreparably  defective.  The  here- 
ditary Royal  Executive  was  itself  an  inconsistency  with  the 
Declaration  of  Rights.  The  Legislative  power^  all  concentrated 
in  a  single  Assembly,  was  an  incongruity  still  more  glaring* 
These  were  both  departures  from  the  system  of  organization 
which  Lafayette  had  witnessed  in  the  American  Constitutions: 
neither  of  them  was  approved  by  Lafayette.  In  deference  to 
the  pre vailing  opinions  and  prejudices  of  the  times  he  ac- 
quiesced in  them,  and  he  was  destined  to  incur  the  most 
imminent  hazards  of  his  life,  and  to  make  the  sacrifice  of 
all  that  gives  value  to  life  itself,  in  faithful  adherence  to 
that  Constitution  which  he  had  sworn  to  support. 

Shortly  after  his  resignation  as  Commander  General  of  the 
National  Guards,  the  friends  of  Kberty  and  order  presented 
him  as  a  candidate  for  election  as  Mayor  of  Paris;  but  he 
had  a  competitor  in  the  person  of  Pethion  more  suited  to  the 
party,  pursuing  with  inexorable  rancor  the  abolition  of  the 
Monarchy  and  the  destruction  of  the  King;  and,  what  may 
seem  scarcely  credible,  the  remnant  of  the  party  which  still 
adhered  to  the  King,  the  King  himself,  and  above  all  the 
Queen,  favored  the  election  of  the  Jacobin  Pethion  in  prefer- 


55 

ence  to  that  of  Lafayette.      They  were,   too  fatally  for  them- 
selves,  successful. 

From  the  first  meeting  of  the  Legislative  Assembly  under 
the  Constitution  of  1791,  the  destruction  of  the  King  and  of 
the  Monarchy,  and  the  establishment  of  a  Republic  by  means 
of  the  popular  passions  and  of  popular  violence,  were  the  de- 
liberate purposes  of  its  leading  members.  The  spirit  with 
which  the  Revolution  had  been  pursued  from  the  time  of  the 
destruction  of  the  Bastile,  had  caused  the  emigration  of  great 
numbers  of  the  Nobility  and  Clergy ;  and  among  them  the  two 
brothers  of  Louis  the  Sixteenth,  and  of  several  other  Princes 
of  his  blood.  They  had  applied  to  all  the  other  great  Mo- 
narchies of  Europe  for  assistance  to  uphold  or  restore  the 
crumbling  Monarchy  of  France.  The  French  Reformers  them- 
selves, in  the  heat  of  their  political  fanaticism,  avowed,  without 
disguise,  the  design  to  revolutionize  all  Europe,  and  had  emis- 
saries in  every  country  openly  or  secretly  preaching  the  doctrine 
of  insurrection  against  all  established  Governments.  Louis  the 
Sixteenth  and  his  Queen,  an  Austrian  Princess,  sister  to  the 
Emperor  Leopold,  were  in  secret  negotiation  with  the  Austrian 
Government  for  the  rescue  of  the  King  and  royal  family  of 
France  from  the  dangers  with  which  they  were  so  incessantly 
beset.  In  the  Electorate  of  Treves,  a  part  of  the  Germanic 
Empire,  the  emigrants  from  France  were  assembling  with  indi- 
cations of  a  design  to  enter  France  in  hostile  array  to  effect 
a  counter-revolution;  and  the  brothers  of  the  King,  assuming 
a  position  at  Coblentz,  on  the  borders  of  their  country,  were 
holding  councils,  the  object  of  which  was  to  march  in  arms 

,«..-•£  >:-v^ 


56 


to  Paris  to  release  the  King  from  captivity,  and  to  restore  the 
ancient  Monarchy  to  the   dominion  of  absolute  Power. 

The  King,  who  even  before  his  forced  acceptance  of  the 
-Constitution  of  1791  had  made  an  unsuccessful  attempt  to 
escape  from  his  'palace  prison,  was,  in  April,  1792.  reduced  to 
the  humiliating  necessity  of  declaring  war  against  the  very 
Sovereigns  who  were  arming  their  Nations  to  rescue  him  from 
his  revolted  subjects.  Three  armies,  each  of  fifty  thousand 
men,  were  levied  to  meet  the  emergencies  of  this  war,  and 
were  placed  under  the  command  of  Luckner,  Rochambeau, 
and  Lafayette.  As  he  passed  through  Paris  to  go  and  take  the 
command  of  his  army,  he  appeared  before  the  Legislative  As- 
sembly, the  President  of  which,  in  addressing  him,  said  that 
the  Nation  would  oppose  to  their  eiNtoaies  the  Constitution  and 
Lafayette. 

But  the  enemies  to  the  Constitution  were  within  the  walls. 
At  this  distance  of  time,  when  most  of  the  men  and  many 
of  the  passions  of  those  days  have  passed  away,  when  the 
French  Revolution  and  its  results  should  be  regarded  with  the 
searching  eye  of  philosophical  speculation  as  lessons  of  expe- 
rience to  after  ages,  may  it  even  now  be  permitted  to  remark 
how  much  the  virtues  and  the  crimes  of  men,  in  times  of 
political  convulsion,  are  modified  and  characterized  by  the  cir- 
cumstances in  which  they  are  placed.  The  great  actors  of 
the  tremendous  scenes  of  revolution  of  those  times  were  men 
educated  in  schools  of  high  civilization,  and  in  the  humane 
and  benevolent  precepts  of  the  Christian  religion.  A  small 


5T 


portion  of  them  were  vicious  and  depraved ;  but  the  great 
majority  were  wound  up  to  madness  by  that  war  of  conflict- 
ing interests  and  absorbing  passions,  enkindled  by  a  great  con- 
vulsion of  the  social  system.  It  has  been  said  by  a  great 
master  of  human  nature— 

"  In  peace, .  there's  nothing  so  becomes  a  man 
As  modest  stillness  and  humility ; 
But  when  the  blast  of  war  blows  in  your  ears, 
Then  imitate  the  action  of  the  tiger." 

Too  faithfully  did  the  People  of  France,  and  the  leaders  of  their 
factions,  in  that  war  of  all  the  political  elements,  obey  that  in- 
junction. Who  that  lived  in  that  day  can  remember!  who  since 
born  can  read,  or  bear  to  be  told  the  horrors  of  the  20th  of 
June,  the  10th  of  August,  the  2d  and  3d  of  September,  1792, 
of  the  31st  of  May,  1793,  and  6f  a  multitude  of  others,  during 
which  in  dreadful  succession  the  murderers  of  one  day  were  the 
victims  of  the  next,  until  that,  when  the  insurgent  populace: 
themselves  were  shot  down  by  thousands  in  the  very  streets  of 
Paris  by  the  military  legions  of  the  Convention,  and  the  rising 
fortune  and  genius  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte !  Who  can  remember,, 
or  read,  or  hear  of  all  this,  without  shuddering  at  the  sight  of 
man,  his  fellow -creature,  in  the  drunkenness  of  political  frenzy 
degrading  himself  beneath  the  condition  of  the  cannibal  savage — 
beneath  even  the  condition  of  the  wild  beasts  of  the  desert !  and 
who  but  with  a  feeling  of  deep  mortification  can  reflect,  that  the 
rational  and  immortal  being  to  the  race  of  which  he  himself  be- 
longs, should,  even  in  his  most  palmy  state  of  intellectual  cul- 
tivation, be  capable  of  this  self-transformation  to  brutality ! 


58 


In  this  dissolution  of  all  the  moral  elements  which  regulate 
the  conduct  of  men  in  their  social  condition — in  this  monstrous 
and  scarcely  conceivable  spectacle  of  a  King  at  the  head  of  a 
mighty  Nation  in  secret  league  with  the  enemies  against  whom 
he  has  proclaimed  himself  at  war,  and  of  a  Legislature  con- 
spiring to  destroy  the  King  and  Constitution  to  which  they  have 
sworn  allegiance  and  support,  Lafayette  alone  is  seen  to  preserve 
his  fidelity  to  the  King,  to  the  Constitution,  and  to  his  country: 

"  Unshaken,  unseduced,  unterrified, 
His  loyalty  he  kept,  his  love,  his  zeal." 

On  the  16th  of  June,  1792,  four  days  before  the  first  violation 
ef  the  Palace  of  the  Tuilleries  by  the  populace  of  Paris,  at  the 
instigation  of  the  Jacobins,  Lafayette  in  a  letter  to  the  Legislative 
Assembly  had  denounced  the  Jacobin  Club,  and  called  upon  the 
Assembly  to  suppress  them.  He  afterwards  repaired  to  Paris  in 
person,  presented  himself  at  the  bar  of  the  Assembly,  repeated 
his  denunciation  of  the  Club,  and  took  measures  for  suppressing 
their  meetings  by  force.  He  proposed  also  to  the  King  himself 
to  furnish  him  with  means  of  withdrawing  with  his  family  to 
Compeigne,  where  he  would  have  been  out  of  the  reach  of  that 
ferocious  and  blood-thirsty  multitude.  The  Assembly  by  a  great 
majority  of  votes  sustained  the  principles  of  his  letter,  but  the 
King  declined  his  proffered  assistance  to  enable  him  to  withdraw 
from  Paris;  and  of  those  upon  whom  he  called  to  march  with 
him  and  shut  up  the  hall  where  the  Jacobins  held  their  meet- 
ings, not  more  than  thirteen  persons  presented  themselves  at  the 
-appointed  time. 


59 


He  returned  to  his  army,  and  became  thenceforth  the  special 
object  of  Jacobin  resentment  and  revenge.  On  the  8th  of  Au- 
gust, on  a  preliminary  measure  to  the  intended  insurrection  of 
the  10th,  the  question  was  taken,  after  several  days  of  debate, 
upon  a  formal  motion  that  he  should  be  put  in  accusation  and 
tried.  The  last  remnant  of  freedom  in  that  Assembly  was  then 
seen  by  the  vote  upon  nominal  appeal,  or  yeas  and  nays,  in 
which  four  hundred  and  forty-six  votes  were  for  rejecting  the 
charge,  and  only  two  hundred  and  twenty-four  for  sustaining 
it.  Two  days  after,  the  Tuilleries  were  stormed  by  popular 
insurrection.  The  unfortunate  King  was  compelled  to  seek 
refuge,  with  his  family,  in  the  Hall  of  the  Legislative  Assembly, 
and  escaped  from  being  torn  to  pieces  by  an  infuriated  mul- 
titude, only  to  pass  from  his  palace  to  the  prison,  in  his  way 
to  the  scaffold. 

This  revolution,  thus  accomplished,  annihilated  the  Con- 
stitution, the  Government,  and  the  cause  for  which  Lafayette 
had  contended.  The  people  of  France  by  their  acquiescence,. 
a  great  portion  of  them  by  direct  approval,  confirmed  and 
sanctioned  the  abolition  of  the  Monarchy.  The  armies  and 
their  commanders  took  the  same  victorious  side :  not  a  show 
of  resistance  was  made  to  the  revolutionary  torrent,  not  an  arm 
was  lifted  to  restore  the  fallen  Monarch  to  his  throne,  nor  even 
to  rescue  or  protect  his  person  from  the  fury  of  his  inexorable 
foes.  Lafayette  himself  would  have  marched  to  Paris  with  his 
army  for  the  defence  of  the  Constitution,  but  in  this  disposition 
he  was  not  seconded  by  his  troops.  After  ascertaining  that  the 
effort  would  be  vain,  and  after  arresting  at  Sedan  the  members 


60 

of  the  Deputation  from  the  Legislative  Assembly,  sent  after 
their  own  subjugation  to  arrest  him,  he  determined,  as  the  only 
expedient  left  him  to  save  his  honor  and  his  principles,  to  with- 
draw both  from  the  army  and  the  country  ;  to  pass  into  a  neu- 
tral territory,  and  thence  into  these  United  States,  the  country 
of  his  early  adoption  and  his  fond  partiality,  where  he  was  sure 
of  finding  a  safe  asylum,  and  of  meeting  a  cordial  welcome. 

But  his  destiny  had  reserved  him  for  other  and  severer 
trials.  We  have  seen  him  struggling  for  the  support  of  prin- 
ciples, against  the  violence  of  raging  factions  and  the  fickleness 
of  the  multitude  ;  we  are  now  to  behold  him  in  the  hands  of 
the  hereditary  rulers  of  mankind,  and  to  witness  the  nature  of 
their  tender  mercies  to  him. 


It  was  in  the  neutral  territory  of  Liege  that  hey  together 
with  his  companions,  Latour  Maubourg,  Bureau  de  Puzy,  and 
Alexandre  Lameth,  was  taken  by  Austrians,  and  transferred  to, 
Prussian  guards.  Under  the  circumstances  of  the  case,  he  could 
not  by  the  principles  of  the  laws  of  Nations  be  treated  even  as, 
a  prisoner  of  war.  He  was  treated  as  a  prisoner  of  State. 
Prisoners  of  State  in  the  Monarchies  of  Europe  are  always 
presumed  guilty,  and  are  treated  as  if  entitled  as  little  to  mercy 
as  to  justice.  Lafayette  was  immured  in  dungeons,  first  at 
Wesel,  then  at  Magdeburg,  and  finally  at  Olmutz,  in  Moravia. 
By  what  right  ?  By  none  known  among  men.  By  what  au- 
thority ?  Tliat  has  never  been  avowed.  For  what  cause  ?  None 
has  ever  been  assigned.  Taken  by  Austrian  soldiers  upon  a 
neutral  territory,  he  was  handed  over  to  Prussian  jailers  ;  and, 


61 


v/hen  Frederick  "William  of  Prussia  abandoned  his  Austrian 
ally,  and  made  his  separate  peace  with  republican  France,  he  re- 
transferred  his  illustrious  prisoner  to  the  Austrians,  from  whom 
heN  had  received  him,  that  he  might  be  deprived  of  the  blessing 
of  regaining  his  liberty  even  from  the  hands  of  Peace.  Five 
years  was  the  duration  of  this  imprisonment,  aggravated  by 
every  indignity  that  could  make  oppression  bitter.  That  it  was 
intended  as  imprisonment  for  life,  was  not  only  freely  avowed 
but  significantly  made  known  to  him  by  his  jailors  ;  and  while 
with  affected  precaution  the  means  of  terminating  his  sufferings 
by  his  own  act  were  removed  from  him,  the  barbarity  of  ill 
usage,  of  unwholesome  food,  and  of  a  pestiferous  atmosphere, 
was  applied  with  inexorable  rigor,  as  if  to  abridge  the  days 
which  at  the  same  time  were  rendered  as  far  as  possible  in- 
supportable to  •himself. 

Neither  the  generous  sympathies  of  the  gallant  soldier, 
General  Fitzpatrick,  in  the  British  House  of  Commons,  nor  the 
personal  solicitation  of  Washington,  President  of  the  United 
States,  speaking  with  the  voice  of  a  grateful  Nation,  nor  the 
persuasive  accents  of  domestic  and  conjugal  affection,  implor- 
ing the  Monarch  of  Austria  for  the  release  of  Lafayette,  could 
avail.  The  unsophisticated  feeling  of  generous  nature  in  the 
hearts  of  men  at  this  outrage  upon  justice  and  humanity,  was 
manifested  in  another  form.  Two  individuals,  private  citizens, 
one  of  the  United  States  of  America,  Francis  Huger,  the  other 
a  native  of  the  Electorate  of  Hanover,  Doctor  Erick  Bollmann, 
undertook  at  the  imminent  hazard  of  their  Uves  to  supply 
means  for  his  escape  from  prison,  and  their  personal  aid  to  its 


v 

62 

accomplishment.      Their  design  was  formed  with  great  address, 
pursued  with  untiring  perseverance,  and  executed  with  undaunted 

•  fc  •  * 

intrepidity.      It  was  frustrated  by  accidents  beyond  the  control 
of  human  sagacity. 

To  his  persecutions,  however,  the  hand  of  a  wise  and*  just 
Providence  had,  in  its  own  time  and  in  its  own  way,  prepared 
a  termination.  The  hands  of  the  Emperor  Francis,  tied  by 
mysterious  and  invisible  bands  against  the  indulgence  of  mercy 
to  the  tears  of  a  more  than  heroic  wife,  were  loosened  by  the 
more  prevailing  eloquence,  or,  rather,  were  severed  by  the  con- 
quering sword  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte,  acting  under  instructions 
from  the  Executive  Directory  then  swaying  the  destinies  of 
France. 

Lafayette  and  his  fellow -sufferers  were  still  under  the  sentence 
of  proscription,  issued  by  the  faction  which  had  destroyed  the 
Constitution  of  1791  and  murdered  the  ill-fated  Louis  and  his 
Queen.  But  revolution  had  followed  upon  revolution  since  the 
downfall  of  the  Monarchy,  on  the  10th  of  August,  1792.  The 
Federative  Republicans  of  the  Gironde  had  been  butchered  by 
the  Jacobin  Republicans  of  the  Mountain.  The  Mountain  had 
been  subjugated  by  tht  Municipality  of  Paris,  and  the- sections  of 
Paris  by  a  reorganization  of  parties  in  the  National  Convention, 
'and  with  aid  from  the  armies.  Brissot  and  his  federal  asso- 
ciates, Danton  and  his  party,  Robespierre  and  his  subaltern 
demons,  had  successively  perished,  each  by  the  measure  applied 
to  themselves  which  they  had  meted  out  to  others;  and  as  no 
experiment  of  political  empiricism  was  to  be  omitted  in  the 


63 


medley  of  the  French  Revolutions,  the  hereditary  Executive, 
with  a  single  Legislative  Assembly,  was  succeeded  by  a  Con- 
stitution with  a  Legislature  in  two  branches,  and  a  five-headed 
Executive,  eligible,  annually  one-fifth,  by  their  concurrent  votes, 
and  bearing  the  name  of  a  Directory.  This  was  the  Govern- 
ment at  whose  instance  Lafayette  was  finally  liberated  from  the 
dungeon  of  Olmutz. 

But  while  this  Directory  were  shaking  to  their  deepest 
foundations  all  the  Monarchies  of  Europe;  while  they  were 
stripping  Austria,  the  most  potent  of  them  all,  piece-meal  of 
her  territories ;  while  they  were  imposing  upon  her  the  most 
humiliating  conditions  of  peace,  and  bursting  open  her  dungeons 
to  restore  their  illustrious  countrymen  to  the  light  of  day  and 
the  blessing  of  personal  freedom,  they  were  themselves  explod- 
ing by  internal  combustion,  ,  divided  into  two  factions,  each 
conspiring  the  destruction  of  the  other.  Lafayette  received  his 
freedom,  only  to  see  the  two  members  of  the  Directory  who 
had  taken  the  warmest  interest  in  effecting  his  liberation,  out- 
lawed and  proscribed  by  their  colleagues :  one  of  them,  Carnot, 
a  fugitive  from  his  country,  lurking  in  banishment  to  escape 
pursuit;  and  the  othef,  Barthelemy,  deported,  with  fifty  mem- 
bers of  the  Legislative  Assembly,  without  form  of  trial,  or  even 
of  legal  process,  to  the  pestilential  climate  of  Guiana.  All  this 
was  done  with  the  approbation,  expressed  in  the  most  unqualified 
terms,  of  Napoleon,  and  with  co-operation  of  his  arm.y.  Upon 
being  informed  of  the  success  of  this  Pride's  purge,  he  wrote 
to  the  Directory  that  he  had  with  him  one  hundred  thousand 
men,  upon  whom  they  might  rely  to  cause  to  be  respected  all 


C4 


rtiie  measures  that    they  should  take    to  establish  liberty  upon 
solid  foundations. 

Two  years  afterwards,  another  revolution,  directly  accom- 
plished by  Napoleon  himself,  demolished  the  Directory,  the 
Constitution  of  the  two  Councils,  and  the  solid  liberty,  to  the 
support  of  which  the  hundred  thousand  men  had  been  pledged, 
had  introduced  another  Constitution,  with  Bonaparte  himself  for 
its  Executive  Head,  as  the  first  of  three  Consuls,  for  five 
years. 

In  the  interval  between  these  two  revolutions,  Lafayette  resided 
for  about  two  years,  first  in  the.  Danish  Territory  of  Holsteiu, 
and  afterwards  at  Utrecht,  in  the  Batavian  Republic.  Neither 
of  them  had  been  effected  by  means  or  in  a  manner  which  could 
possibly  meet  his  approbation.  But  the  Consular  Government 
commenced  with  broad  .professions  of  republican  principles,  on 
the  faith  of  which  he  returned  to  'France,  and  for  a  series  of 
years  resided  in  privacy  and  retirement  upon  his  estate  of  La 
Grange.  Here,  in  the  cultivation  of  his  farm  and  the  enjoy- 
ment of  domestic  felicity,  embittered  only  by  the  loss,  in  1807, 
of  that  angel  upon  earth,  the  partner  of  all  the  vicissitudes  of 
his  life,  he  employed  his  time,  and  witnessed  the  upward  flight 
and  downward  fall  of  the  soldier  and  sport  of  fortune,  Napo- 
leon Bonaparte.  He  had  soon  perceived  the  hollowness  of  the 
Consular  professions  of  pure  republican  principles,  and  withheld  him- 
self from  all  participation  in  the  Government.  In  1802,  he  was 
elected  a  member  of  the  General  Council  of  the  Department  of 
Upper  Loire,  and,  in  declining  the  appointment,  took  occasion  to 


65 


present  a  review  of  his  preceding  life,  and  a  pledge  of  his  per- 
severance in  the  principles  which  he  had  previously  sustained. 
"  Far,"  said  he,  "  from  the  scene  of  public  affairs,  and  devoting 
myself  at  last  to  the  repose  of  private  life,  my  ardent  wishes 
are,  that  external  peace  should  soon  prove  the  fruit  of  those 
miracles  of  glory  which  are  even  now  surpassing  the  prodigies 
of  the  preceding  campaigns,  and  that  internal  peace  should  be 
consolidated  upon  the  essential  and  invariable  foundations  of 
true  liberty.  Happy  that  twenty-three  years  of  vicissitudes  in 
my  fortune,  and  of  constancy  to  my  principles,  authorize  me  to 
repeat,  that,  if  a  Nation  to  recover  its  rights  needs  only  the 
will,  they  can  only  be  preserved  by  inflexible  fidelity  to  its  ob- 

h 

ligations." 

When  the  First  Consulate  for  five  years  was  invented  as 
one  of  the  steps  of  the  ladder  of  Napoleon's  ambition,  he  suffered 
Sieyes,  the  member  of  the  Directory,  whom  he  had  used  as  an 
instrument  for  casting  off  that  worse  than  worthless  Institution, 
to  prepare  another  Constitution,  of  which  he  took  as  much  as 
suited  his  purpose,  and  consigned  the  rest  to  oblivion.  One  of 
the  wheels  of  this  new  political  engine  was  a  conservative  Senate, 
forming  the  peerage  to  sustain  the  Executive  Head.  This  body 
it  was  the  interest  and  the  policy  of  Napoleon  to  conciliate,  and 
he  filled  it  with  men  who,  through  all  the  previous  stages  of  the 
Revolution,  had  acquired  and  maintained  the  highest  respectability 
of  character.  Lafayette  was  urged  with  great  earnestness  by  Na- 
poleon himself  to  take  a  seat  in  this  Senate;  but  after  several 
conferences  with  the  First  Consul  in  which  he  ascertained  the 
extent  of  his  designs,  he  peremptorily  declined.  His  answer 
9 


66 

to  the  Minister  of  War  tempered  his  refusal  with  a  generous 
and  delicate  compliment,  alluding  at  the  same  time  to  the  po- 
sition which  the  consistency  of  his  character  made  it  his  duty 
to  occupy.  To  the  First  Consul  himself,  in  terms  equally  can- 
did and  explicit,  he  said,  "  that,  from  the  direction  which  public 
affairs  were  taking,  what  he  already  saw,  and  what  it  was  easy 
to  foresee,  it  did  not  seem  suitable  to  his  character  to  enter 
into  an  order  of  things  contrary  to  his  principles,  and  in  which 
he  would  have  to  contend  without  success,  as  without  public 
utility,  against  a  man  to  whom  he  was  indebted  for  great  ob- 
ligations." 

Not  long  afterwards,  when  all  republican  principle  was  so 
utterly  prostrated  that  he  was  summoned  to  vote  on  the  question 
whether  the  citizen  Napoleon  Bonaparte  should  be  Consul  for 
life,  Lafayette  added  to  his  vote  the  following  comment :  "  I 
cannot  vote  for  such  a  Magistracy  until  the  public  liberty  shall 
have  been  sufficiently  guaranteed ;  and  in  that  event  I  vote  for 
Napoleon  Bonaparte." 

He  wrote  at  the  same  time  to  the  First  Consul  a  letter 
explanatory  of  his  vote,  which  no  Republican  will  now  read 
without  recognizing  the  image  of  inordinate  and  triumphant 
ambition  cowering  under  the  rebuke  of  disinterested  virtue. 

"The  18th  of  Brumaire  (said  this  letter)  saved  France; 
and  I  felt  myself  recalled  by  the  liberal  professions  to  which 
you  had  attached  your  honor.  Since  then  we  have  seen  in  the 
Consular  power  that  reparatory  dictatorship  which,  under  the 


auspices  of  your  genius,  has  achieved  so  much ;  yet  not  so  muck 
as  will  be  the  restoration  of  liberty.     It  is  impossible  that  you, 
General,  the  first  of  that  order  of  men  who  to  compare  and  seat 
themselves  take  in  the  compass  of  all  ages,  that  you  should  wish 
such  a  revolution — so  many  victories,  so  much  blood,  so  many 
calamities  and  prodigies,  should  have  for  the  world  and  for  you 
no   other   result   than    an   arbitrary  Government.      The   French 
People    have   too   well    known    their  rights  ultimately  to  forget 
them;    but  perhaps    they  are  now  better   prepared,  than   in   the 
time  of  their  effervescence,  to  recover  them  usefully;   and  you, 
by  the  force  of  your  character  and  of  the  public  confidence,  by ' 
the  superiority  of  your  talents,  of  your  position,  of  your  fortune, 
may,  by  the  re-establishment  of  liberty,  surmount  every  danger 
and  relieve  every  anxiety.      I  have  then  no  other  than  patriotic 
and  personal  motives  for  wishing  you  this  last  addition  to  your 
glory — a  permanent  magistracy;   "But  it  is  due  to  the  principles, 
the  engagements,  and  the  actions  of  my  whole  life,  to  wait,  before 
giving  my  vote,  until  liberty  shall  have  been  settled  upon  found- 
ations worthy  of  the  Nation  and  of  you.    I  hope,  General,  that 
you  will  here  find,  as  heretofore,  that  with  the  perseverance  of 
my  political  opinions  are  united  sincere  good  wishes  personally 
to  you,  and  a  profound  sentiment  of  my  obligations  to  you." 

«,';..(•' 

The  writer  of  this  letter,  and  he  to  whom  it  was  addressed, 
have  each  in  his  appropriate  sphere  been  instruments  of  tran- 
scendent power,  in  the  hands  of  Providence,  to  shape  the  ends 
of  its  wisdom  in  the  wonderful  story  of  the  French  Revolution. 
In  contemplating  the  part  which  each  of  them  had  acted  upon 
that  great  theatre  of  human  destiny,  before  the  date  of  the  letter, 


68 


how  strange  was  at  that  moment  the  relative  position  of  the  two 
individuals  to  each  other  and  to  the  world  !  Lafayette  was  the 
founder  of  the  great  movement  then  in  progress  for  the  establish- 
ment of  freedom  in  France,  and  in  the  European  world ;  but  his 
agency  had  been  all  intellectual  and  moral.  He  had  asserted  and 
proclaimed  the  principles.  He  had  never  violated,  never  betrayed 
them.  Napoleon,  a  military  adventurer,  had  vapored  in  proclama- 
tions, and  had  the  froth  of  Jacobinism  upon  his  lips ;  but  his  soul 
was  at  the  point  of  his  sword.  The  Revolution  was  to  Lafayette 
the  cause  of  human  kind ;  to  Napoleon  it  was  a  mere  ladder  of 
ambition. 

Yet,  at  the  time  when  this  letter  was  written,  Lafayette 
after  a  series  of  immense  sacrifices  and  unparalleled  sufferings, 
was  a  private  citizen,  called  to  account  to  the  world  for  declining 
to  vote  for  placing  Napoleon  at  the  head  of  the  French  Nation, 
with  arbitrary  and  indefinite  power  for  life ;  and  Napoleon,  amid 
professions  of  unbounded  devotion  to  liberty y  was,  in  the  face 
of  mankind,  ascending  the  steps  of  an  hereditary  imperial  and 
royal  throne.  Such  was  their  relative  position  then;  what  is 
it  now  ?  Has  History  a  lesson  for  mankind  more  instructive 
than  the  contrast  and  the  parallel  of  their  fortunes  and  their  fate  ? 
Time  and  chance,  and  the  finger  of  Providence,  which  in  every 
deviation  from  the  path  of  justice  reserves  or  opens  to  itself 
an  avenue  of  return,  has  brought  each  of  these  mighty  men  to  a 
close  of  life,  congenial  to  the  character  with  which  he  travelled 
over  its  scenes.  The  Consul  for  life,  the  hereditary  Emperor  and 
King,  expires  a  captive  on  a  barren  rock  in  the  wilderness  of  a 
distant  Ocean — separated  from  his  imperial  wife — separated  from 


69 


his  son,  who  survives  him  only  to  pine  away  his  existence,  and 
die  at  the  moment  of  manhood  in  the  condition  of  an  Austrian 
Prince.  The  Apostle  of  Liberty  survives,  again  to  come  for- 
ward the  ever-consistent  champion  of  her  cause,  and  finally  to 
close  his  career  in  peace,  a  Republican,  without  reproach  in 
death  as  he  had  been  without  fear  throughout  life. 

But  Napoleon  was  to  be  the  artificer  of  his  own  fortunes, 
prosperous  and  adverse.  He  was  rising  by  the  sword ;  by  the 
sword  he  was  destined  to  fall.  The  counsels  of  wisdom, arid  of 
virtue  fell  forceless  upon  his  ear,  or  sunk  into  his  heart  only  to 
kindle  resentment  and  hatred.  He  sought  no  further  personal 
intercourse  with  Lafayette ;  and  denied  common  justice  to  his 
son,  who  had  entered  and  distinguished  himself  in  the  army  of 
Italy,  and  from  whom  he  withheld  the  promotion  justly  due  to 
his  services. 

The  career  of  glory,  of  fame,  and  of  power,  of  which  the 
Consulate  for  life  was  but  the  first  step,  was  of  ten  years'  con- 
tinuance, till  it  had  reached  its  zenith;  till  the  astonished  eyes 
of  mankind  beheld  the  charity  scholar  of  Brienne,  Emperor, 
King,  and  Protector  of  the  Confederation  of  the  Rhine,  ban- 
queting at  Dresden,  surrounded  by  a  circle  of  tributary  crown- 
ed heads,  among  whom  was  seen  that  very  Francis  of  Austria, 
the  keeper,  in  his  Castle  of  Olmutz,  of  the  republican  Lafayette. 
And  upon  that  day  of  the  banqueting  at  Dresden,  the  star  of 
Napoleon  culminated  from  the  Equator.  Thenceforward  it  was 
to  descend  with  motion  far  more  rapid  than  when  rising,  till  it 
sank  in  endless  night.  Through  that  long  period  Lafayette 


ro 


remained  in  retirement  at  La  Grange.  Silent "  amidst  the  deaf- 
ening shouts  of  victory  from  Marengo,  and  Jena,  and  Austerlitz, 
and  Friedland,  and  Wagram,  and  Borodino — silent  at  the  con- 
flagration of  Moscow;  at  the  passage  of  the  Beresina;  at  the 
irretrievable  discomfiture  of  Leipzig;  at  the  capitulation  at  the 
gates  of  Paris,  and  at  the  first  restoration  of  the  Bourbons  under 
the  auspices  of  the  inveterate  enemies  of  France — as  little  could 
Lafayette  participate  in  the  measures  of  that  restoration  as  in 
the  usurpations  of  Napoleon.  Louis  the  Eighteenth  was  quar- 
tered upon  the  French  Nation  as  the  soldiers  of  the  victorious 
armies  were  quartered  upon  the  inhabitants  of  Paris.  Yet  Louis 
the  Eighteenth,  who  held  his  Crown  as  the  gift  of  the  con- 
querors of  France,  the  most  humiliating  of  the  conditions  im- 
posed upon  the  vanquished  Nation,  affected  to  hold  it  by 
Divine  right,  and  to  grant,  as  a  special  favor,  a  Charter,  or 
Constitution,  founded  on  the  avowed  principle  that  all  the 
liberties  of  the  Nation  were  no  more  than  gratuitous  donations 
of  the  King, 

These  pretensions,  with  a  corresponding  course  of  policy 
pursued  by  the  reinstated  Government  of  the  Bourbons,  and 
the  disregard  of  the  national  feelings  and  interests  of  France, 
with  which  Europe  was  remodelled  at  the  Congress  of  Vienna, 
opened  the  way  for  the  return  of  Napoleon  from  Elba,  within 
a  year  from  the  time  when  he  had  been  relegated  there.  He 
landed  as  a  solitary  adventurer,  and  the  Nation  rallied  round 
him  with  rapture.  He  came  with  promises  to  the  Nation  of 
freedom  as  well  as  of  independence.  The  Allies  of  Vienna 
proclaimed  against  him  a  war  of  extermination,  and  reinvaded 


71 


France  with  armies  exceeding  in  numbers  a  million  of  men. 
Lafayette  had  been  courted  by  Napoleon  upon  his  return.  He 
was  again  urged  to  take  a  seat  in  the  House  of  Peers,  but 
peremptorily  declined,  from  aversion  to  its  hereditary  character. 
He  had  refused  to  resume  his  title  of  nobility,  and  protested 
against  the  Constitution  of  the  Empire,  and  the  additional  act 
entailing  the  imperial  hereditary  Crown  upon  the  family  of 
Napoleon.  But  he  offered  himself  as  a  candidate  for  election 
as  a  member  of  the  popular  Representative  Chamber  of  the 
Legislature,  and  was  unanimously  chosen  by  the  Electoral  Col- 
lege of  his  Department  to  that  station. 

The  battle  of  Waterloo  was  the  last  desperate  struggle  of 
Napoleon  to  recover  his  fallen  fortunes,  and  its  issue  fixed  his 
destiny  forever.  He  escaped  almost  alone  from  the  field,  and 
returned  a  fugitive  to  Paris,  projecting  to  dissolve  by  armed 
force  the  Legislative  Assembly,  and,  assuming  a  dictatorial 
power,  to  levy  a  new  army  and  try  the  desperate  chances  of 
another  battle.  This  purpose  was  defeated  by  the  energy  and 
promptitude  of  Lafayette.  At  his  instance  the  Assembly 
adopted  three  resolutions,  one  of  which  declared  them  in  per- 
manent session,  and  denounced  any  attempt  to  dissolve  them 
as  a  crime  of  high  treason. 

After  a  feeble  and  fruitless  attempt  of  Napoleon,  through 
his  brother  Lucien,  to  obtain  from  the  Assembly  itself  a  tem- 
porary dictatorial  power,  he  abdicated  the  Imperial  Crown  in 
favor  of  his  infant  son ;  but  •  his  abdication  could  not  relieve 
France  from  the  deplorable  condition  to  which  he  had  reduced 


her.  France,  from  the  day  of  the  battle  of  Waterloo,  was  at 
the  mercy  of  the  allied  Monarchs;  and,  as  the  last  act  of  their 
revenge,  they  gave  her  again  the  Bourbons.  France  was  con- 
strained to  receive  them.  It  was  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet, 
and  resistance  was  of  no  avail.  The  Legislative  Assembly  ap- 
pointed a  Provisional  Council  of  Government,  and  Commis- 
sioners, of  whom  Lafayette  was  one,  to  negotiate  with  the  allied 
armies  then  rapidly  advancing  upon-  Paris. 

t.'i  "> 

The  Allies  manifested  no  disposition  to  negotiate.  They 
closed  the  doors  of  their  Hall  upon  the  Representatives  of  the 
People  of  France.  They  reseated  Louis  the  Eighteenth  upon 
his  throne.  Against  these  measures  Lafayette  and  the  members 
of  the  Assembly  had  no  means  of  resistance  left,  save  a  fearless 
protest,  to  be  remembered  when  the  day  of  freedom  should 
return. 

From  the  time  of  this  second  restoration  until  his  death, 
Lafayette,  who  had  declined  accepting  a  seat  in  the  hereditary 
Chamber  of  Peers,  and  inflexibly  refused  to  resume  his  title  of 
nobility,  though  the  Charter  of  Louis  the  Eighteenth  had  restored 
them  all,  was  almost  constantly  a  member  of  the  Chamber  of 
Deputies,  the  popular  branch  of  the  Legislature.  More  than 
once,  however,  the  influence  of  the  court  was  successful  in  de- 
feating his  election.  At  one  of  these  intervals  he  employed 
the  leisure  afforded  him  in  revisiting  the  United  States. 

Forty  years  had  elapsed  since  he  had  visited  and  taken 
leave  of  them,  at  the  close  of  the  Revolutionary  War.  The 


greater  part  of  the  generation  for  and  with  whom  he  had 
fought  his  first  fields,  had  passed  away.  Of  the  two  millions 
of  souls  to  whose  rescue  from  oppression  he  had  crossed  the 
Ocean  in  1777,  not  one  in  ten  survived.  But  their  places 
were  supplied  by  more  than  five  times  their  numbers — their 
descendants  and  successors.  The  sentiment  of  gratitude  and 
affection  for  Lafayette,  far  from  declining  with  the  lapse  of 
time,  quickened  in  spirit  as  it  advanced  in  years,  and  seemed 
to  multiply  with  the  increasing  numbers  of  the  People.  The 
Nation  had  never  ceased  to  sympathize  with  his  fortunes,  and 
in  every  vicissitude  of  his  life  had  manifested  the  deepest 
interest  in  his  welfare.  He  had  occasionally  expressed  his 
intention  to  visit  once  more  the  scene  of  his  early  achieve- 
ments, and  the  country  which  had  requited  his  services  by  a 
just  estimate  of  their  value.  In  February,  1824,  a  solemn 
Legislative  act,  unanimously  passed  by  both  Houses  of  Con- 
gress, and  approved  by  the  President  of  the  United  States, 
charged  the  Chief  Magistrate  of  the  Nation  with  the  duty  of 
communicating  to  him  the  assurances  of  grateful  and  affectionate 
attachment  still  cherished  for  him  by  the  Government  and 
People  of  the  United  States,  and  of  tendering  to  him  a  na- 
tional ship,  with  suitable  accommodation,  for  his  conveyance  to 
this  country. 

Ten  years  have  passed  away  since  the  occurrence  of  that 
event.  Since  then,  the  increase  of  population  within  the  bor- 
ders of  our  Union  exceeds,  in  numbers,  the  whole  mass  of 
that  infant  community  to  whose  liberties  he  had  devoted,  in 
early  youth,  his  life  and  fortune.  His  companions  and  fellow- 
10 


soldiers  of  the  war  of  Independence,  'of  whom  a  scanty  rem- 
nant still  existed]' to  join  in  the  universal  shout  of  welcome 
with  which  he  landed  upon  our  shores,  have  been  since,  in 
the  ordinary  course  of  nature,  dropping  away :  pass  but  a  few 
short  years  more,  and  not  an  individual  of  that  generation  with 
which  he  toiled  and  bled  in  the  cause  of  human  kind  upon 
his  first  appearance  on  the  field  of  human  action,  will  be  left. 
The  gallant  officer  and  distinguished  Representative  of  the  People, 
at  whose  motion  upon  this  floor  the  invitation  of  the  Nation 
was  given — the  Chief  Magistrate  by  whom  in  compliance  with 
the  will  of  the  Legislature  it  was  tendered — the  surviving  Pre- 
sidents of  the  United  States,  and  their  venerable  compeer  signers 
of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  who  received  him  to  the 
arms  of  private  friendship  while  mingling  their  voices  in  the 
chorus  of  public  exultation  and  joy,  are  no  longer  here  to  shed 
the  tear  of  sorrow  upon  his  departure  from  this  earthly  scene. 
They  all  preceded  him  in  the  translation  to  another,  and,  we 
trust,  a  happier  world.  The  active  energetic  manhood  of  the 
Nation,  of  whose  infancy  he  had  been  the  protector  and  bene- 
factor, and  who  by  the  protracted  festivities  of  more  than  a 
year  of  jubilee  manifested  to  him  their  sense  of  the  obligations 
for  which  they  were  indebted  to  himy  are  already  descending 
into  the  vale  of  years.  The  children  of  the  public  schools, 
who  thronged  in  double  files  to  pass  in  review  before  him  to 
catch  a  glimpse  of  his  countenance  and  a  smile  from  his  eye, 
are  now  among  the  men  and  women  of  the  land,  rearing  another 
generation  to  envy  their  parents  the  joy  which  they  can  never 
share,  of  having  seen  and  contributed  to  the  glorious  and  trium- 
phant reception  of  Lafayette. 


75 


Upon  his  return  to  France  Lafayette  was  received  with  a 
welcome  by  his  countrymen  scarcely  less  enthusiastic  than  that 
with  which  he  had  been  greeted  in  this  country.  From  his 
landing  at  Havre  till  his  arrival  at  his  residence  at  La  Grange 
it  was  again  one  triumphal  march,  rendered  but  the  more 
striking  by  the  interruptions  and  obstacles  of  an  envious  and 
jealous  Government.  Threats  were  not  even  spared  of  arrest- 
ing him  as  a  criminal,  and  holding  him  responsible  for  the  spon- 
taneous and  irrepressible  feelings  manifested  by  the  People  in 
his  favor.  He  was  very  soon  after  his  return  again  elected  a 
member  of  the  Chamber  of  Deputies,  and  thenceforward,  in 
that  honorable  and  independent  station,  was  the  soul  of  that 
steadfast  and  inflexible  party  which  never  ceased  to  defend,  and 
was  ultimately  destined  to  vindicate  the  liberties  of  France. 

The  Government  of  the  Bourbons,  from  the  time  of  their 
restoration,  was  a  perpetual  struggle  to  return  to  the  Satur- 
nian  times  of  absolute  power.  For  them  the  Sun  and  Moon 
had  stood  still,  not,  as  in  the  miracle  of  ancient  story  for 
about  a  whole  day,  but  for  more  than  a  whole  century. 
Reseated  upon  their  throne,  not  as  the  Stuarts  had  been  in 
the  seventeenth  century  by  the  voluntary  act  of  the  same 
People  which  had  expelled  them,  but  by  the  arms  of  foreign 
Kings  and  hostile  armies,  instead  of  aiming  by  the  liberality 
of  their  Government  and  by  improving  the  condition  of  their 
People  to  make  them  forget  the  humiliation  of  the  yoke  im- 
posed upon  them,  they  labored  with  unyielding  tenacity  to 
make  it  more  galling.  They  disarmed  the  National  Guards; 
they  cramped  and  crippled  the  right  of  suffrage  in  elections; 


they  perverted  and  travestied  the  institution  of  juries;  they 
fettered  the  freedom  of  the  Press,  and  in  their  external  policy 
lent  themselves  willing  instruments  to  crush  the  liberties  of  Spain 
and  Italy.  The  spirit  of  the  Nation  was  curbed,  but  not  subdued. 
The  principles  of  freedom  proclaimed  in  the  Declaration  of  Rights 
of  1789  had  taken  too  deep  root  to  be  extirpated.  Charles  the 
Tenth,  by  a  gradual  introduction  into  his  councils  of  the  most 
inveterate  adherents  to  the  anti-revolutionary  Government,  was 
preparing  the  way  for  the  annihilation  of  the  Charter  and  of  the 
Legislative  Representation  of  the  People.  In  proportion  as  this 
.plan  approached  to  its  maturity  the  resistance  of  the  Nation  to 
its  accomplishment  acquired  consistency  and  organization.  The 
time  had  been,  when,  by  the  restrictions  upon  the  right  of  suf- 
frage and  the  control  of  the  Press,  and  even  of  the  freedom  of 
debate  in  the  Legislature,  the  Opposition  in  the  Chamber  of  Deputies 
had  dwindled  down  to  not  more  than  thirty  members.  But 
under  a  rapid  succession  of  incompetent  and  unpopular  Adminis- 
trations, the  majority  of  the  House  of  Deputies  had  passed  from 
the  side  of  the  Court  to  that  of  the  People.  In  August,  1829, 
the  King,  confiding  in  his  imaginary  strength,  reorganized  his 
Ministry  by  the  appointment  of  men  whose  "reputation  was  itself 
a  pledge  of  the  violent  and  desperate  designs  in  contemplation. 
At  the  first  meeting  of  the  Legislative  Assembly,  an  address  to 
the  King,  signed  by  two  hundred  and  twenty-one  out  of  four 
hundred  members,  declared  to  him,  in  respectful  terms,  that  a 
concurrence  of  sentiments  between  his  Ministers  and  the  Nation 
was  indispensable  to  the  happiness  of  the  People  under  his  Go- 
vernment, and  that  this  concurrence  did  not  exist.  He  replied 
that  his  determination  was  immovable,  and  dissolved  the  Assembly. 


A  new  election  was  held;  and  so  odious  throughout  the  Nation 
were  the  measures  of  the  Court,  that  of  the  two  hundred  and 
twenty-one  members  who  had  signed  the  address  against  the 
Ministers,  more  than  two  hundred  were  re-elected.  The  Oppo- 
sition had  also  gained  an  accession  of  numbers  in  the  remaining 
part  of  the  Deputations,  and  it  was  apparent  that  upon  the  meeting 
of  the  Assembly  the  Court  party  could  not  be  sustained. 

:  •  :.,••;:;  ';•••'    l^i          •  •,<.•  r   ,  v 

At   this  crisis,   Charles  the  Tenth,   as  if   resolved   to  leave 

himself  not  the  shadow  of  a  pretext  to  complain  of  his  expul- 
sion from  the  throne,  in  defiance  of  the  Charter  to  the  ob- 
servance of  which  he  had  solemnly  sworn,  issued  at  one  and 
the  same  time  four  Ordinances — the  first  of  which  suspended 
the  liberty  of  the  Press,  and  prohibited  the  publication  oft  all 
the  daily  newspapers  and  other  periodical  journals  but  by  li- 
cense, revocable  at  pleasure,  and  renewable  every  three  months ; 
the  second  annulled  the  election  of  Deputies  which  had  just 
taken  place;  the  third  changed  the  mode  of  election  prescribed 
by  law,  and  reduced  nearly  by  one-half  the  numbers  of  the 
House  of  Deputies  to  be  elected  ;  and  the  fourth  commanded 
the  new  elections  to  be  held,  and  fixed  a  day  for  the  meeting 
of  the  Assembly  to  be  so  constituted. 

These  Ordinances  were  the  immediate  occasion  of  the  last 
Revolution  of  the  three  days,  'terminating  in  the  final  expulsion 
of  Charles  the  Tenth  from  the  throne,  and  of  himself  and  his 
family  from  the  Territory  of  France.  This  was  effected  by  an 
insurrection  of  the  People  of  Paris,  which  burst  forth  by  spon- 
taneous and  unpremeditated  movement  on  the  very  day  of  the 


promulgation  of  the  four  Ordinances.  The  first  of  these,  the 
suppression  of  all  the  daily  newspapers,  seemed  as  if  studiously 
devised  to  provoke  instantaneous  resistance,  and  the  conflict  of 
physical  force.  Had  Charles  the  Tenth  issued  a  decree  to  shut 
up  all  the  bake-houses  of  Paris,  it  could  not  have  been  more 
fatal  to  his  authority.  The  conductors  of  the  proscribed  jour- 
nals, by  mutual  engagement  among  themselves,  determined  to 
consider  the  Ordinance  as  unlawful,  null,  and  void  ;  and  this 
was  to  all  the  classes  of  the  people  the  signal  of  resistance. 
The  publishers  of  two  of  the  journals,  summoned  immediately 
before  the  Judicial  Tribunal,  were  justified  in  their  resistance 
by  the  sentence  of  the  court,  pronouncing  the  Ordinance  null 
and  void.  A  Marshal  of  France  receives  the  commands  of  the 
King  to  disperse  by  force  of  arms  the  population  of  Paris ; 
but  the  spontaneous  resurrection  of  the  National  Guard  or- 
ganizes at  once  an  army  to  defend  the  liberties  of  the  Nation. 
Lafayette  is  again  called  from  his  retreat  at  La  Grange,  and 
by  the  unanimous  voice  of  the  people,  confirmed  by  such  De- 
puties of  the  Legislative  Assembly  as  were  able  to  meet  for 
cemmon  consultation  at  that  trying  emergency,  is  again  placed 
at  the  head  of  the  National  Guard  as  their  Commander-in-chief. 
He  assumed  the  command  on  the  second  day  of  the  conflict, 
and  on  the  third  Charles  the  Tenth  had  ceased  to  reign.  He 
formally  abdicated  the  Crown,  and  his  son,  the  Duke  d'An- 
gouleme,  renounced  his  pretensions  to  the  succession.  But, 
humble  imitators  of  Napoleon,  even  in  submitting  to  their  own 
degradation,  they  clung  to  the  last  grasp  of  hereditary  sway,  by 
transmitting  all  their  claim  of  dominion  to  the  orphan  child  of 
the  Duke  of  Berri. , 


At  an  early  stage  of  the  Revolution  of  1789,  Lafayette  had 
declared  it  as  a  principle  that  insurrection  against  tyrants  was 
the  most  sacred  of  duties.  He  had  borrowed  this  sentiment, 
perhaps,  from  the  motto  of  Jefferson — e<  Rebellion  to  tyrants  is 
obedience  to  God."  The  principle  itself  is  as  sound  as  its  enun- 
ciation is  daring.  Like  all  general  maxims  it  is  susceptible  of 
very  dangerous*  abuses :  the  test  of  its  truth  is  exclusively  in  the 
correctness  of  its  application.  As  forming  a  part  of  the  political  f 
creed  of  Lafayette  it  has  been  severely  criticised ;  nor  can  it 
be  denied  that,  in  the  experience  of  the  French  Revolutions,  the 
cases  in  which  popular  insurrection  has  been  resorted  to  for  the 
extinction  of  existing  authority,  have  been  so  frequent,  so  un- 
justifiable in  their  causes,  so  atrocious  in  their  execution,  so 
destructive  to  liberty  in  their  consequences,  that  the  friends  of 
Freedom  who  know  that  she  can  exist  only  under  the  supre-; 
macy  of  the  law,  have  sometimes  felt  themselves  constrained  to 
shrink  from  the  development  of  abstract  truth  in  the  dread  of 
the  danger  with  which  she  is  surrounded. 

In  the  revolution  of  the  three  days  of  1830,  it  was  the  steady, 
calm,  but  inflexible  adherence  of  Lafayette  to  this  maxim  which 
decided  the  fate  of  the  Bourbons.  After  the  struggles  of  the 
People  had  commenced,  and  even  while  liberty  and  power  were 
grappling  with  each  other  for  life  or  death,  the  Deputies  elect 
to  the  Legislative  Assembly,  then  at  Paris,  held  several  meet- 
ings at  the  house  of  their  colleague,  Lafitte,  and  elsewhere,  at 
which  the  question  of  resistance  against  the  Ordinances  was  warmly 
debated,  and  aversion  to  that  resistance  by  force  was  the  senti- 
ment predominant  in  the  minds  of  a  majority  of  the  members. 

,,  T  U^*'V  *'i     ';:'<:' 


80 


The  hearts  of  some  of  the  most  ardent  patriots  quailed  within 
them  at  the  thought  of  another  overthrow  of  the  Monarchy.  All 
the  horrible  recollections  of  the  reign  of  terror,  the  massacre  of 
the  prisons  in  September,  the  butcheries  of  the  guillotine  from 
year  to  year,  the  headless  trunks  of  Brissot,  and  Danton,  and 
Robespierre,  and  last,  not  least,  the  iron  crown  and  sceptre  of 
Napoleon  himself,  rose  in  hideous  succession  before  them,  and 
haunted  their  imaginations.  They  detested  the  Ordinances,  but 
hoped  that  by  negotiation  and  remonstrance  with  the  recreant  King, 
it  might  yet  be  possible  to  obtain  the  revocation  of  them,  and 
the  substitution  of  a  more  liberal  Ministry.  This  deliberation 
was  not  concluded  till  Lafayette  appeared  among  them.  From 
that  moment  the  die  was  cast.  They  had  till  then  no  military 
leader.  Louis  Philippe  of  Orleans  had  not  then  been  seen 
among  them. 

0 

In  all  the  changes  of  Government  in  France,  from  the  first  Assem- 
bly of  Notables  to  that  day,  there  never  had  been  an  act  of  authority 
presenting  a  case  for  the  fair  and  just  application  of  the  duty 
of  resistance  against  oppression  so  clear,  so  unquestionable,  so 
flagrant  as  this.  The  violations  of  the  Charter  were  so  gross 
and  palpable  that  the  most  determined  Royalist  could  not  deny 
them.  The  mask  had  been  laid  aside.  The  sword  of  despot- 
ism had  been  drawn  and  the  scabbard  cast  away.  A  King, 
openly  forsworn,  had  forfeited  every  claim  to  allegiance ;  and 
the  only  resource  of  the  Nation  against  him  was  resistance  by 
force.  This  was  the  opinion  of  Lafayette,  and  he  declared  himself 
ready  to  take  the  command  of  the  National  Guard,  should  the  wish 
of  the  People,  already  declared  thus  to  place  him  at  the  head 


81 


of  this  spontaneous  movement,  be  confirmed  by  his  colleagues  of 
the  Legislative  Assembly.  The  appointment  was  accordingly 
conferred  upon  him,  and  the  .second  day  afterwards  Charles  the. 
Tenth  and  his  family  were  fugitives  to  a  foreign  land. 

France  was  without  a  Government.  She  might  then  have 
constituted  herself  a  Republic ;  and  such  was,  undoubtedly,  the 
aspiration  of  a  very  large  portion  of  her  population.  But  with 
another  and  yet  larger  portion  of  her  People,  the  name  of  Re- 
public was  identified  with  the  memory  of  Robespierre.  It  was 
held  in  execration;  there  was  imminent  danger,  if  not  absolute 
certainty,  that  the  attempt  to  organize  a  Republic  would  have 
been  the  signal  for  a  new  civil  war.  The  name  of  a  Republic, 
too,  was  hateful  to  all  the  neighbors  of  France ;  to  the  Con- 
federacy of  Emperors  and  Kings  which  have  twice  replaced  the 
Bourbons  upon  the  throne,  and  who  might  be  propitiated  under 
the  disappointment  and  mortification  of  the  result,  by  the  reten- 
tion of  the  name  of  King  and  the  substitution  of  the  semblance 
of  a  Bourbon  for  the  reality. 

The  People  of  France,  like  the  Cardinal  de  Retz,  more  than 
two  centuries  before,  wanted  a  descendant  from  Henry  the 
Fourth,  who  could  speak  the  language  of  the  Parisian  populace, 
and  who  had  known  what  it  was  to  be  a  Plebeian.  They  found 
him  in  the  person  of  Louis  Philippe  of  Orleans.  Lafayette 
himself  was  compelled  to  compromise  with  his  principles,  purely 
and  simply  republican,  and  to  accept  him,  first,  as  Lieutenant- 
General  of  the  Kingdom  and  then  as  hereditary  King.  There 
was  perhaps  in  this  determination,  besides  the  motives  which 
11 


operated  upon  others,  a  consideration  of  disinterested  delicacy 
which  could  be  applicable  only  to  himself.  If  the  Republic 
should  be  proclaimed,  he  knew  that  the  Chief  Magistracy  could 
be  delegated  only  to  himself.  It  must  have  been  a  Chief  Ma- 
gistracy for  life,  which  at  his  age  could  only  have  been  for  a 
short  term  of  years.  Independent  of  the  extreme  dangers  and 
difficulties  to  himself,  to  his  family,  and  to  his  country,  in  which  the 
position  which  he  would  have  occupied  might  have  involved  them,  the 
inquiry  could  not  escape  his  forecast,  who  upon  his  demise  could 
be  his  successor?  and  what  must  be  the  position  occupied  by 
him  ?  If  at  that  moment  he  had  but  spoken  the  word  he  might 
have  closed  his  career  with  a  Crown  upon  his  head,  and  with 
a  withering  blast  upon  his  name  to  the  end  of  time. 

' 

With  the  Duke  of  Orleans  himself  he  used  no  concealment 
or  disguise.  When  the  Crown  was  offered  to  that  Prince  and 
he  looked  to  Lafayette  for  consultation,  "you  know  (said  he) 
that  I  am  of  the  American  school,  and  partial  to  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States."  So,  it  seems  was  Louis  Philippe.  "I 
think  with  you,"  said  he.  "It  is  impossible  to  pass  two  years 
in  the  United  States  without  being  convinced  that  their  Govern- 
ment is  the  best  in  the  world.  But  do  you  think  it  suited 
to  our  our  present  circumstances  and  condition  r"  "  No," 
replied  Lafayette.  "  They  require  a  Monarchy  surrounded  by 
popular  institutions."  So  thought  also  Louis  Philippe;  and  he 
accepted  the  Crown  under  the  conditions  upon  which  it  was  ten- 
dered to  him. 

'  '  ^«r      ' 

Lafayette  retained  the  command  of  the  National    Guard    s« 


83 


long  as  it  was  essential  to  the  settlement  of  the  new  order  of 
tilings  on  the  basis  of  order  and  of  freedom ;  so  long  as  it  was 
essential  to  control  the  stormy  and  excited  passions  of  the  Pa- 
risian People;  so  long  as  it  was  necessary  to  save  the  Ministers 
of  the  guilty  but  fallen  Monarch  from  the  rash  and  .revengeful 
resentments  of  their  conquerors.  When  this  was  accomplished, 
and  the  People  had  been  preserved  from  the  calamity  of  shed- 
ding in  peace  the  blood  of  war,  he  once  more  resigned  his  com- 
mand, retired  in  privacy  to  La  Grange,  and  resumed  his  post 
as  a  Deputy  in  the  Legislative  Assembly,  which  he  continued  to 
hold  till  the  close  of  life. 

t 

His  station  there  was  still  at  the  head  of  the  phalanx,  sup- 
porters of  liberal  principles  and  of  constitutional  freedom.  In 
Spain,  in  Portugal,  in  Italy,  and,  above  all,  in  Poland,  the 
cause  of  liberty  has  been  struggling  against  the  hand  of  power, 
and  to  the  last  hour  of  his  life  they  found  in  Lafayette  a 
never-failing  friend  and  patron. 

In  his  last  illness,  the  standing  which  he  held  ain  the 
hearts  of  mankind  was  attested  by  the  formal  resolution  of  the 
House  of  Deputies,  met  to  make  inquiries  concerning  his  con- 
dition; and,  dying,  as  he  did,  full  of  years  and  of  glory,  never 
in  the  history  of  mankind,  has  a  private  individual  departed 
more  universally  lamented  by  the  whole*  generation  of  men  whom 

he  has  left  behind* 

.  •• 

Such,  Legislators  of  the  North  American   Confederate  Union, 
was  the  life  of  GILBERT  MOTIER  DE  LAFAYETTE,  and  the  record 


84 


of  his  life  is  the  delineation  of  his  character.  Consider  him 
as  one  human  being  of  one  thousand  millions,  his  cotemporaries 
on  the  surface  of  the  terraqueous  globe.  Among  that  thousand 
millions  seek  for  an  object  of  comparison  with  him;  assume  for 
the  standard  of  comparison  all  the  virtues  which  exalt  the 
character  of  man  above  that  of  the  brute  creation;  take  the 
ideal  man,  little  lower  than  the  angels;  mark  the  qualities  of 
the  mind  and  heart  which  entitle  him  to  this  station  of  pre- 
eminence in  the  scale  of  created  beings,  and  inquire  who  that 
lived  in  the  eighteenth  and  nineteeth  centuries  of  the  Christian 
aera,  combined  in  himself  so  many  of  those  qualities,  so  little 
alloyed  with  those  which  belong  to  that  earthly  vesture  of  decay 
in  which  the  immortal  spirit  is  enclosed — as  Lafayette. 

Pronounce  him  one  of  the  first  men  °f  his  age,  and  you 
have  yet  not  done  him  justice.  Try  him  by  that  test  to  which 
he  sought  in  vain  to  stimulate  the  vulgar  and  selfish  spirit  of 
Napoleon;  class  him  among  the  men  who,  to  compare  and  seat 
themselves,  must  take  in  the  compass  of  all  ages ;  turn  back  ; 
your  eyes  upon  the  records  of  time;  summon  from  the  creation 
of  the  world  to  this  day  the  mighty  dead  of  every  age  and 
every  clime — and  where,  among  the  race  of  merely  mortal  men, 
shall  one  be  found,  who,  as  the  benefactor  of  his  kind,  shall 
claim  to  take  precedence  of  Lafayette! 

There  have  doubtless  been,  in  all  ages,  men,  whose  disco- 
veries or  inventions,  in  the  world  of  matter  or  of  mind,  have 
opened  new  avenues  to  the  dominion  of  man  over  the  material 
creation;  .have,  increased  his  means  or  his  faculties  of  enjoy- 


85 

ment;  have  raised  him  in  nearer  approximation  to  that  higher 
and  happier  condition,  the  object  of  his  hopes  and  aspirations 
in  his  present  state  of  existence. 

Lafayette  discovered  no  new  principle  of  politics  or  of  morals. 
He  invented  nothing  in  science.  He  disclosed  no  new  phe- 
nomenon in  the  laws  of  nature.  Born  and  educated  in  the 
highest  order  of  feudal  Nobility,  under  the  most  absolute  Mo- 
narchy of  Europe,  in  possession  of  an  affluent  fortune,  and  master 
of  himself  and  of  all  his  capabilities  at  the  moment  of  attaining 
manhood,  the  principle  of  republican  justice  and  of  social  equality 
took  possession  of  his  heart  and  mind,  as  if  by  inspiration  from 
above.  He  devoted  himself,  his  life,  his  fortune,  his  hereditary 
honors,  his  towering  ambition,  his  splendid  hopes,  all  to  the 
cause  of  liberty.  He  came  to  another  hemisphere  to  defend 
her.  He  became  one  of  the  most  effective  champions  of  our 
Independence;  but,  that  once  achieved,  he  returned  to  his  own 
country,  and  thenceforward  took  no  part  in  the  controversies 
which  have  divided  us.  In  the  events  of  our  Revolution,  and 
in  the  forms  of  policy  which  we  have  adopted  for  the  esta- 
blishment and  perpetuation  of  our  freedom,  Lafayette  found  the 
most  perfect  form  of  government.  He  wished  to  add  nothing 
to  it.  He  would  gladly  have  abstracted  nothing  from  it.  In- 
stead of  the  imaginary  Republic  of  Plato,  or  the  Utopia  of 
Sir  Thomas  More,  he  took  a  practical  existing  model,  in  actual 
operation  here,  and  never  attempted  or  wished  more  than  to 
apply  it  faithfully  to  his  own  country. 

It  was  not  given  to  Moses  to  enter  the  promised  land;  but 


86 


he  saw  it  from  the  summit  of  Pisgah.  It  was  not  given  to 
Lafayette  to  witness  the  consummation  of  his  wishes  in.  the 
establishment  of  a  Republic,  and  the  extinction  of  all  hereditary 
rule  in  France.  His  principles  were  in  advance  of  the  age 
and  hemisphere  in  which  he  lived.  A  Bourbon  still  reigns  on 
the  throne  of  France,  and  it  is  not  for  us  to  scrutinize  the 
title  by  which  he  reigns.  The  principles  of  elective  and 
hereditary  power,  blended  in  reluctant  union  in  his  person,  like 
the  red  and  white  roses  of  York  and  Lancaster,  may  postpone 
to  aftertime  the  last  conflict  to  which  they  must  ultimately 
come.  The  life  of  the  Patriarch  was  not  long  enough  for  the 
development  of  his  whole  political  system.  Its  final  accom- 
plishment is  in  the  womb  of  time. 

The  anticipation  of  this  event  is  the  more  certain,  from  the 
consideration  that  all  the  principles  for  which  Lafayette  con- 
tended were  practical.  He  never  indulged  himself  in  wild  and 
fanciful  speculations.  The  principle  of  hereditary  power  was, 
in  his  opinion,  the  bane  of  all  republican  liberty  in  Europe. 
Unable  to  extinguish  it  in  the  Revolution  of  1830,  so  far  as 
concerned  the  Chief  Magistracy  of  the  Nation,  Lafayette  had 
the  satisfaction  of  seeing  it  abolished  with  reference  to  the 
Peerage.  An  hereditary  Crown,  stript  of  the  support  which 
it  may  derive  from  an  hereditary  Peerage,  however  compatible 
with  Asiatic  despotism,  is  an  anomaly  in  the  history  of  the 
Christian  world,  and  in  the  theory  of  free  Government.  There 
is  no  argument  producible  against  the  existence  of  an  heredi- 
tary Peerage,  but  applies  with  aggravated  weight  against  the 
transmission  from  sire  to  son  of  an  hereditary  Crown.  The 


prejudices  and  passions  of  the  People  of  France  rejected  the 
principle  of  inherited  power,  in  every  station  of  public  trust, 
excepting  •  the  first  and  highest  of  them  all ;  but  there  they 
clung  to  it,  as  did  the  Israelites  of  old  to  the  savory  deities 
of  Egypt. 

This  is  not  the  time  .or  the  place  for  a  disquisition  upon 
the  comparative  merits,  as  a  system  of  government,  of  a  Re- 
public, and  a  Monarchy  surrounded  by  republican  institutions. 
Upon  this  subject  there  is  among  us  no  diversity  of  opinion; 
and  if  it  should  take  the  People  of  France  another  half  cen- 
tury of  internal  and  external  war,  of  dazzling  and  delusive 
glories;  of  unparalleled  triumphs,  humiliating  reverses,  and 
bitter  disappointments,  to  settle  it  to  their  satisfaction,  the  ulti- 
mate result  can  only  bring  them  to  the  point  where  we  have 
stood  from  the  day  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence— to  the 
point  where  Lafayette  would  have  brought  them,  and  to  which 
he  looked  as  a  consummation  devoutly  to  be  wished. 

Then,  ioo,  and  then  only,  will  be  the  time  when  the  cha- 
racter of  Lafayette  will  be  appreciated  at  its  true  value  through- 
out the  civilized  world.  When  the  principle  of  hereditary 
dominion  shall  be  extinguished  in  all  the  institutions  of  France; 
when  Government  shall  no  longer  be  considered  as  property 
transmissible  from  sire  to  son,  but  as  a  trust  committed  for  a 
limited  time,  and  then  to  return  to  the  People  whence  it  came; 
as  a  burdensome  duty  to  be  discharged  and  not  as  a  reward 
to  be  abused;  when  a  claim,  any  claim  to  political  power  by 
inheritance  shall,  in  the  estimation  of  the  whole  French  People, 


88 


be  held  as  it  now  is  by  the  whole  People  of  the  North  Ame- 
rican Union — then  will  be  the  time  for  contemplating  the  cha- 
racter of  Lafayette,  not  merely  in  the  events  of  his  life,  but, 
in  the  full  development  of  his  intellectual  conceptions,  of  his 
fervent  aspirations,  of  the  labors  and  perils  and  sacrifices  of 
his  long  and  eventful  career  upon  earth;  and  thenceforward, 
till  the  hour  when  the  trump  of  the  Archangel  shall  sound  to 
announce  that  Time  shall  be  no  more,  the  name  of  Lafayette 
shall  stand  enrolled  upon  the  annals  of  our  race,  high  on  the 
list  of  the  pure  and  disinterested  benefactors  of  mankind. 


APPENDIX. 


PROCEEDINGS    IN    CONGRESS. 


IN  THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES. 

June  21,  1834. 

Mr.  JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS  moved  the  following  resolution  :— 

Resolved,  That  a  committee  be  appointed  on  the  part  of  this  house,  to  join 
such  committee  as  may  be  appointed  on  the  part  of  the  Senate,  to  consider  and 
report  by  what  token  of  respect  and  affection  it  may  be  proper  for  the  Con- 
gress of  the  United  States  to  express  the  deep  sensibility  of  the  Nation  to  the 
event  of  the  decease  of  General  LAFAYETTE. 

The  resolution  being  read,  the  question  was  put,  that  the  house 
do  agree  thereto,  and  passed  in  the  affirmative  unanimously.  •  It 
was  then 

Ordered,  That  the  committee  on  the  part  of  this  house  consist 
of  one  member  from  each  state;  and 

Mr.  JOHN  Q.  ADAMS,  of  Massachusetts,      Mr.  WILLIAMS,  of  North  Carolina, 

M'INTYRE  of  Maine,  PINCKNEY,  of  South  Carolina, 

HtTBBARD,  of  New  Hampshire,  WAYNE,  of  Georgia, 

BURGESS,  of  Rhode  Island,  JOHNSON,  of  Kentucky, 

BARBER,  of  Connecticut,.  BLAIR,  of  Tennessee, 

ALLEN,  of  Vermont,  WHITTLESEY,  of  Ohio, 

CAMBRELENG,  of  New  York,  THOMAS,  of  Louisiana, 

PARKER,  of  New  Jersey,  CARR,  of  Indiana, 

MUHLENBTTRG,  of  Pennsylvania,  CAGE,  of  Mississippi, 

MILLIGAN,  of  Delaware,  DUNCAN,  of  Illinois, 

M'KiM,  of  Maryland,  MURPHY,  of  Alabama, 

ARCHER,  of  Virginia,  ASHLEY,  of  Missouri, 
were  appointed  the  committee  on  the  part  of  the  House. 


90 


Ordered,  That  the  clerk  request  the  concurrence  of  the  Senate 
in  the  said  resolution. 

A  message  from  the  Senate,  bj  Mr.  Lowrie,  then  secretary: 

Mr.  Speaker,- — The  Senate  have  passed  the  resolution  for  the 
appointment  of  a  joint  committee  "to  consider  and  report  by 
what  token  of  respect  and  affection  it  may  be  proper  for  the 
Congress  of  the  United  States  to  express  the  deep  sensibility  of 
the  Nation  to  the  event  of  the  decease  of  General  LAFAYETTE," 
and  have  appointed  a  committee  on  their  part. 

The  committee  on  the  part  of  the  Senate  are — 

Mr.  WEBSTER,  Mr.  BENTON, 

WHITE,  TOINDEXTER, 

CALHOUN,  K^NG,  of  Alabama, 

CLAY,  -CHAMBERS, 

FORSYTK,  EROWN,  and 

WILKINS,  SHEPLEY. 
TYLER, 

IN  THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES. 

June  24,  1834. 

Mr.  JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS,  from  the  joint  committee  appointed 
on  the  21st  instant  "to  consider  and  report  by  what  token  of 
respect  and  affection  it  may  be  proper  for  the  Congress  of  the 
United  States  to  express  the  deep  sensibility  of  the  nation  to  the 
event  of  the  decease  of  General  LAFAYETTE,"  reported  the  fol- 
lowing joint  resolutions: — 

Resolved  by  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  of  the  United  States  of 
America  in  Congress  assembled,  That  the  two  houses  of  Congress  have  received 
•with  the  profoundest  sensibility,  intelligence  of  the  death  of  General  LAFAYETTE, 
the  friend  of  the  United  States,  the  friend  of  WASHINGTON,  and  the  friend  of 
Liberty. 


91 


,  And  be  it  further  resolved,  That  the  sacrifices  and  efforts  of  this  illustrious 
person  in  the  cause  of  our  country,  during  her  struggle  for  Independence,  and  the 
affectionate  interest  which  he  has  at  all  times  manifested  for  the  success  of  her 
political  institutions,  claim  from  the  government  and  people  of  the  United  States 
an  expression  of  condolence  for  his  loss,  veneration  for  his  virtues,  and  gratitude 
for  his  services. 

And  be  it  further  resolved,  That  the  President  of  the  United  States  be  requested 
to  address,  together  with  a  copy  of  'the  above  resolutions,  a  letter  to  GEORGE 
WASHINGTON  LAFAYETTE,  and  the  other  members -of  his  family,  assuring  them 
of  the  condolence  of  this  whole  nation  in  their  irreparable  bereavement. 

And  be  it  further  resolved,  That  the  members  of  the  two  houses  of  congress 
will  wear  a  badge  of  mourning  for  thirty  days ;  and  that  it  be  recommended  to 
the  people  of  the  United  States  to  wear  a  similar  badge  for  the  same  period. 

And  be  it  further  resolved,  That  the  Halls  of  the  Houses  be  dressed  in  mourning 
for  the  residue  of  the  session. 

And  be  it  further  resolved,  That  JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS  be  requested  to  deliver 
an  oration  on  the  life  and  character  of  General  LAFAYETTE,  before  the  two  houses 
of  Congress,  at  the  next  session. 


The  said  resolutions  were  read  three  times  successively,  and 
passed  unanimously, 

A  message  from  the  Senate,  by  Mr.  Lowrie,  their  secretary : 

Mr.  Speaker, — The  Senate  have  passed,  unanimously,  the  reso- 
lution manifesting  the  sensibility  of  the  two  Houses  of  Congress 
and  of  the  nation  on  the  occasion  of  the  decease  of  General 
LAFAYETTE. 


IN  THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES. 

'December  9,  1834. 
On  motion  of  Mr.  HUBBARD, 

Resolved,  That  a  committee  be  appointed  on  the  pkrt  of  this  house,  to  join 
such  committee  as  may  be  appointed  on  the  part  of  the  Senate,  to  consider  and 
report  the  arrangements  necessary  to  be  adopted  in  order  to  carry  into  effect  the 
last  resolution  reported  on  the  24th  June,  1834,  by  the  joint  committee  appointed 
at  the  last  session  of  congress,  on  the  occasion  of  the  death  of  General  LAFAYETTE, 


Mr.  HUBBARD,  Mr.  LINCOLN,  Mr.  WHITE,  Mr.  ALLEN,  of  Vir- 
ginia, and  Mr.  MARSHALL,  were  appointed  the  said  committee. 

Ordered,  That  the  clerk  acquaint  the  Senate  therewith. 

The  Senate  concurred  in  the  foregoing  resolution,  December 
15,  1834;  and  Mr.  CLAY,  Mr.  WHITE,  Mr.  CALHOUN,  Mr.  WEB- 
STER, and  Mr.  BUCHANAN,  were  appointed  the  committee  on  their 
part. 

IN  THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES. 

December  23,  1834. 

Mr.  HUBBARD,  from  the  select  joint  committee  appointed  toxon- 
sider  and  report  what  measures  were  necessary  to  give  effect  to  the 
resolutions  adopted  at  the  last  session  for  paying  suitable  honors 
to  the  memory  of  General  LAFAYETTE,  reported  the  following 
resolution  :— 


Resolved  by  the  Stnate  and  House  of  Representatives,  That  Wednesday,  the 
thirty-first  instant,  be  the  time  assigned  for  the  delivery  of  the  oration  by  JOHN 
QUINCY  ADAMS,  before  the  two  Houses  of  Congress,  on  the  life  and  character  of 
General  LAFAYETTE. 

That  the  two  houses  shall  be  called  to  order  by  their  respective  presiding 
officers  at  the  usual  hour,  and  the  journal  of  the  preceding  day  shall  be  read  ;  but 
all  legislative  business  shall  be  suspended  on  that  day. 

That  the  oration  shall  be  delivered  at  half-past  twelve  o'clock,  in  the  hall  of 
the  House  of  Representatives. 

That  the  President  of  the  United  States  and  the  heads  of  the  several  depart- 
ments, the  French  Minister  and  members  of  the  French  Legation,  all  other  foreign 
ministers  at  the  seat  of  government,  and  the  members  of  their  respective  legations, 
be  invited  to  attend  on  that  occasion  by  the  chairman  of  the  joint  committee. 

That  the  President  of  the  United  States,  the  heads  of  the  several  departments, 
the  French  Minister  and  members  of  the  French  Legation,  the  other  foreign  mi- 
nisters at  the  seat  of  government,  and  the  members  of  their  respective  legations,  and 
JOHN  QUIKTCY  ADAMS,  be  requested  to  assemble  at  half-past  twelve  o'clock,  P.  M., 
in  the  Senate  Chamber,  and  that  they,  with  the  Senate  shall  be  attended  by  the  joint 
committee  to  the  hall  of  the  House  of  Representatives. 


93 


That  the  galleries  of  the  House,  under  the  direction  of  its  officers,  shall 
be  open  on  that  day  for  the  accommodation  of  such  citizens  as  may  think 
proper  to  attend ; 

Which  was  agreed  to  by  the  House. 

Ordered,  That  the  clerk  acquaint  the  Senate  therewith. 
The  Senate  concurred  in  the  foregoing  resolution. 

IN  THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES. 

December  31,  1834. 

In  pursuance  of  the  arrangements  reported  bj  the  joint  com- 
mittee appointed  on  the  9th  December  instant,  to  consider  and 
report  the  arrangements  necessary  to  be  adopted  to  carry  into 
effect  the  last  resolution  reported  on  the  24th  June/  1834,  by  the 
joint  committee  appointed  at  the  last  session  of  Congress,  on  the 
occasion  of  the  death  of  General  LAFAYETTE,  the  hall  was  pre- 
pared for  the  reception  of  the  Senate,  and  for  the  guests  invited, 
in  accordance  with  the  said  arrangements. 

At  forty  minutes  past  twelve  o'clock  the  Senate  of  the 
United  States,  preceded  by  the  Vice  President  and  its  officers, 
the  President  of  the  United  States,  the  heads  of  the  several  Exe- 
cutive Departments,  the  Ministers  of  sundry  foreign  nations  at 
the  seat  of  Government,  and  the  members  of  their  respective 
Legations,  and  JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS,  entered  the .  hall  of  the 
House,  and  took  the  seats  prepared  for  them,  respectively.  Mr. 
JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS  was  conducted  to  the  Speaker's  chair  by  the 
committee  of  arrangements,  when  the  Speaker  withdrew,  and 
took  a  seat  at  the  clerk's  table  with  the  Vice  President. 

Mr.    JOHN    QUINCY  ADAMS    then    rose,    and    delivered   an 


94 

Oration  on  the  Life  and  Character  of  General  LAFAYETTE  ;   and 
having,  at  half-past  three  o'clock,  p.  M.,  concluded  the   same, 

The  Senate,  the  President  of  the  United  States,  the  heads  of 
Departments,  and  the  Foreign  Ministers  and  Legations,  withdrew ; 

When  the  Speaker  resumed  his  seat, 

IN  THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES. 

January  2,  1835. 
The  following  joint  resolution  was  offered  bj  Mr.  HUBBAKD  : 

Resolved  by  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives,  That  the  thanks  of 
Congress  be  presented  to  JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS,  for  the  appropriate  Oration 
delivered  by  him  on  the  Life  and  Character  of  General  LAFAYETTE,  in  the 
Representatives'  Hall,  before  both  Houses  of  Congress,  on  the  Slst  day  of 
December,  1834,  and  that  he  be  requested  to  furnish  a  copy  for  publication. 

Resolved,  That  the  chairmen  of  the  joint  committee  appointed  to  make  the 
necessary  arrangements  to  carry  into  efieet  the  resolution,  of  the  last  session  of 
this  Congress  in  relation  to  the  death  of  General  LAFAYETTE,  be  requested  to 
communicate  to  Mr.  ADAMS  the  aforegoing  resolution,  receive  his  answer 
thereto,  and  present  the  same  to  both  Houses  of  Congress. 

The  resolution  was  agreed  to,  nem.  die. 

Ordered,  That  the  Clerk  request  the  concurrence  of-  the  Senate 
therein. 

The  Senate  concurred  in  the  foregoing  resolution, 

IN  THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES. 

January  6,  1835. 

Mr.  HUBBARD,  from  the  select  joint  committee  appointed    on 
the  2d  instant,  to  deliver  the  thanks  of  Congress  to  JOHN  QUINCY 
ADAMS,  for  his  appropriate  Oration  on  the  Life  and  Character  of 
LAFAYETTE,  reported  the  following  correspondence  I—- 
To the  Hon.  JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS  : 

SIR,— We  have  the  honor  to  present  to  you  official  copies  of  two  joint 
resolutions  adopted  by  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  on  the  2d 
instant,  expressing  the  thanks  of  Congress  for  the  appropriate  Oration  delivered 


95 


by  you  in  the  Hall  of  the  House  of  Representatives  on  the  31st  ultimo,  on  the 
Life  and  Character  of  General  LAFAYETTE  ;  and  authorizing  a  request  to  be 
made  to  you  for  a  copy  of  it  for  publication. 

Having  shared  the  high  gratification  of  hearing  the  Oration,  we  take  plea- 
sure, in  pursuance  of  the  second  of  the  joint  resolutions,  in  requesting  you  to 
furnish  a  copy  of  the  Oration  for  publication. 

We  have  the  honor  to  be,  with  great  respect, 
Your  obedient  servants, 

HENRY  CLAY, 
Chairman  of  Committee  on  part  of  Senate. 

HENRY  HUBBARD, 
JAN.  5,1835.  Chairman  of  Committee  on  part  of  House. 

To  Messrs.  HENHY  CLAY  and  HENRY  HUBBARD,  Chairmen  of  the  Joint  Com- 
mittee of  Arrangements  of  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  of  the 
United  States,  to  carry  into  effect  the  resolution  of  Congress  in  relation  to 
the  death  of  General  LAFAYETTE  : 

GENTLEMEN,— I  receive  with  deep  sensibility  your  communication  of  the 
joint  resolution  of  both  Houses  of  Congress  upon  the  Oration  delivered  before 
them  on  the  Life  and  Character  of  LAFAYETTE. 

The  kind  indulgence  with  which  they  have  accepted  the  endeavor  to  give 
effect  to  their  purpose  ot  paying  a  last  tribute  of  national  gratitude  and  affec- 
tion to  the  memory  ot  a  great  benefactor  of  our  country,  will  be  impressed 
upon  my  heart  to  the  last  hour  of  my  life. 

With  this  sentiment  I  shall  take  pleasure  in  furnishing,  as  requested,,  a,  copy 
of  the  Address  for  publication. 

I.  am,,  gentlemen,  with  the  highest  respect, 

Your  fellow-citizen,  and  obedient  servant, 

JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS. 

Mr.  HUBBARD  submitted  the  following  preamble  and  resolution : 

Whereas  it  was  resolved,  at  the  last  session  of  Congress,  that  JOHN  QUINCY 
ADAMS  be  requested  to  deliver  an  Oration  on  the  Life  and  Character  of  General 
LAFAYETTE,  before  the  two  Houses  of  Congress :  and,  in  pursuance  of  that 
resolution,  and  sundry  other  resolutions  which  have  been  subsequently  adopted, 
Mr.  ADAMS,  on  Wednesday,  the  31st  day  of  December,  1834,  in  the  Hall  of 
the  House  of  Representatives,  and  in  the  presence  of  both  Houses  of  Congress, 
and  also  in  the  presence  of  the  President  of  the  United  States,  of  the  heads 
of  the  respective  Departments  of  the  National  Government,  and  of  a  most 
numerous  assembly  of  citizens,  did  deliver  an  Oration  replete  with  those  pure 
and  patriotic  sentiments  which  wilr  be  sacredly  cherished  by  every  true  and 
enlightened  American :  The  House  of  Representatives,  fully  satisfied  with  the 
manner  in  which  Mr,  ADAMS  has  performed  the  duty  assigned  him,  and 


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LIBRARY,  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  DAVIS        'hich   was 

Book  Slip-50m-8t'69(N831s8)458-A-31/5 


On  motion  of  Mr.  CLAY, 
Ordered,  That  ten  thousand  copies  be  printed  for  the  use  of 

the  Senate. 


PAMPHLET  BINDER 

Syracuse,  N.  Y. 
5  Sto<kion.  Calif. 


N9  648045 

E207 

Adams,  J.Q.  L2 

Oration  on  the  life     A2 
and  character  of  Gilbert 
Motier  de  Lafayette. 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
DAVIS 


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